It’s already been over a month since Riot Games applied the newest changes to League of Legends’ ARAM mode, which has been the staple game mode of casual players since its inception back in 2012. From new terrain to bushes and fast-moving Hexgates, there are plenty of adjustments that need getting used to.
For many players, however, the game mode has plenty of issues that need addressing. On the League subreddit, for example, users have raised some valid complaints against some of the changes, including the new terrain introduced by the falling turrets, along with the unbalanced death timers making it that much easier to snowball into victories.
One of the biggest changes Riot applied to the map in ARAM is the broken turret terrain, which blocks off half the lane when a turret is destroyed. Although it does add a new element that provides some variety to games, a lot of players are saying that champions with area-of-effect abilities are now stronger than ever, thanks to their ability to lock choke points.
If an enemy team composition has a champion like Anivia or Miss Fortune, these new changes force players into impossible pushes that guarantee some kind of damage, unless they don’t push at all and instead play passively. The turret also blocks vision, making it even harder to approach without fear of getting jumped from the other side.
The second—and arguably, the worst—problem is the long death timers in the game mode, which are punctuated by the other various changes. Because of the emergence of Hexgates, players that get the first turret have such a high chance for success since they can constantly push into the enemy without any risk of a counter-attack.
The death timers are so long that if an enemy scores an ace, they can deal tons of damage to turrets before dying to their respawned opponents. By the time their opponents push the wave back, they’ve respawned and returned to lane in record time due to the Hexgates. That tug-of-war that many ARAM players have grown accustomed to is waning, and as a result, players are moving away from the mode entirely.
“It feels like once the first tower falls [and] there is a team wipe, you will at minimum lose your inhibitor and a Nexus tower,” one user said. “It doesn’t feel like a back and forth anymore. You will have one tower down and lose the game off of one ace now.”
