Author Topic: So League of Legends Season 3...  (Read 17458 times)

Offline Wingflier

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #45 on: December 13, 2012, 11:10:19 pm »
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Without Kat, would Akali be higher on the Tier list?  Most likely, because she would fill the role that Kat does now.  Also, if you're going to say that Akali snowballs in pubs, how can you deny that Kat snowballs?  Akali's ult hits one person, ONE PERSON.  Kat's ult does a ton of damage to 3 people, and if she gets a kill, she can do the whole thing again.  I've seen Kats absolutely destroy pubs, and with good reason.  She's an overall better hero.
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I disagree. If anything, Diana supersedes Akali, and that's because Diana is better designed (and a touch OP right now). Kat achieves her assassiny role through different means and contributes to a fight in different ways.
Then you're still agreeing with me.  One similar hero has replaced the other because of a better design.  How is that good balance?  Also, how do you prevent this from happening when you're constantly adding new champions with overlapping skills and roles to the game?

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Look at it from the average player's perspective. If you have a bunch of champions that will wipe the floor with you explicitly and only because you don't know the precise means of countering them, why should you bother learning to play?
Why should you bother to learn anything that's difficult in life?

Because some people are wise enough to see that long-term success is better than instant gratification.  Yes, I know we're an instant gratification society, based on getting our pleasure and rewards "now now now", but in the end the things you have to work for are more meaningful than the things you get for free.  This can be empirically shown in psychology.

I do agree with you that there needs to be a balance between game difficulty and insanity, but the way to go about doing that is not to keep nerfing a champion until they're useless outside of pub games, instead of letting people just get better at the game.  They could redesign Akali if that was truly the issue.

But once again, we get into another conundrum (which I mentioned before).  With so many new champions being released, and so many already overlapping roles, eventually the cast will be so big that you can't possibly remake every hero that has become obsolete.  And even if you did do that, the remake of an old champion just makes another champion obsolete in the process.

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Yes, there's things Dota has that League doesn't. I personally feel like Riot's character design is leaps and bounds above Dota's, and along with the extra modes they have and the overall style, it's a better choice. Others feel a different way though, and they're perfectly entitled to that opinion ^_^
Perhaps you do like League's "slightly different" balancing style over DotA's (I think you called it) "bludgeon me over the head with difference" style, but the advantage to DotA's way of doing things is that, as a result of the very unique skillsets, the roles don't overlap.

Let's take a look at League of Legends junglers.  You can't possibly say that all of the junglers are equally useful right now, or that they all offer the same amount to the team.  For example, I play Volibear jungle sometimes for fun.  But I also play Irelia and Amumu jungle as well.  Amumu is a better tank that Volibear, and he's a better initiator.  Irelia is a better assassin, and better at chasing and surviving in team fights.  Both Amumu and Irelia jungle faster than Volibear, even though Volibear is technically considered a "jungler".  In fact, whatever Volibear brings to the team as a jungler, other junglers could offer better.

This doesn't happen in DotA.  There are a small amount of junglers, and they all bring something completely different to the team.  No jungler is strictly better than any other jungler.  Naix brings magic immunity, carry, and anti-tank prowess, Enigma is a great pusher, stunner, and has one of the best aoe ults in the game, Enchantress is a carry who can also dominate creeps, making her great at pushing, but also ganking because her ult, Axe is an initiator and tank, but also great for early sidelane ganks, Lycan is kind of useless for awhile, but he emerges from the jungle as one of the hardest melee carries in the game who runs at max speed and can't be slowed.

You can't pick any one jungler in DotA and say the other junglers are just BETTER than that one: They have everything he offers and more.  You can definitely do that with League.  And that's just one example.

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I'll turn the question on its head: Why should many new player's game experiences suffer because designers can't be bothered to find ways to make characters work without inordinately punishing lack of knowledge? Because that's basically what a pubstomper is.
Well to a certain extent, players have to learn the game right?

I mean Riot is indirectly shooting themselves in the foot by adding so many new champions that yes, it's a bit unreasonable to ask a new player to learn 200+ champions (in the future) as soon as they start playing.  I agree, that's asking way too much.  But that's Riot's fault.  They don't have to keep adding new things at this rate.  They could literally balance the cast that they have for another 3 years, and still probably have some room for improvement.  Yes, it's overwhelming to ask a player to learn all the heroes abilities and skillsets, so the solution is to obviously stop adding new heroes, instead of making the problem even worse; not to nerf the ones already there so people don't have to learn how to play the game.

That's just me though.

I don't think League's champion design is any better or worse than DotA's.  They are both neat in their own way.  League is willing to try new things like non-mana mechanics and Nidalee heroes which is really cool.  On the other hand, they're afraid to add any "game-breaking" abilities, which really puts a limit on what they can add without being "anti-fun".  DotA doesn't seem to care about this.  They'll add whatever would make the game better or more interesting, and if you don't like it then go play something else.

For that reason, there are a lot of neat mechanics and abilities in DotA that will never exist in League.  I like how DotA's designs are a lot more game-changing.  A hero that can steal another's spells, a 4 second aoe stun ultimate, a global silence, a global teleport with an ally, global invisibility, etc.

Sure, mechanics like this which DotA is full of require the player to get better, but in the end you have a better player.  I can take my DotA skills to League and automatically be better than the average player.  I've seen League players try to take their skills to DotA, and they basically have to start over from scratch.  DotA doesn't coddle you.

But at the same time, the simplistic game design of League is also one of its greatest strengths.  I just don't agree that in order to keep it, you have to add new heroes every 2 weeks, and nerf ones that are too good in pubs into the ground.

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Offline Hearteater

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #46 on: December 13, 2012, 11:28:44 pm »
LoL handles the "champion overload" issue for new players with the free rotation.  A new player starts out playing other new players, who all only have access to 10 champions.  For a week, that's all you'll face.  Then things change, and you get another week of another set.  So unless you are so good at the game that your Normal rating pushes you up into much higher level matches in which players have started buying champions, the rate at which you need to learn champions remains pretty constant, regardless of how many champions Riot adds.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #47 on: December 13, 2012, 11:45:55 pm »
LoL handles the "champion overload" issue for new players with the free rotation.  A new player starts out playing other new players, who all only have access to 10 champions.  For a week, that's all you'll face.  Then things change, and you get another week of another set.  So unless you are so good at the game that your Normal rating pushes you up into much higher level matches in which players have started buying champions, the rate at which you need to learn champions remains pretty constant, regardless of how many champions Riot adds.
Well, there's at least six 450 IP champions, so you're going to see those at low levels.

In addition, if anybody has been gifted the game for Christmas or something, they're going to have access to a ton of champions you've never seen before.

If somebody is starting a new account, and already knows the champions they like, they can rush for one that isn't in the rotation.

You're certainly not only going to be facing just the 10 free champions on newbie island.  But yes, I can see how that would help in learning the game.
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Offline RCIX

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #48 on: December 14, 2012, 03:09:04 am »
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Without Kat, would Akali be higher on the Tier list?  Most likely, because she would fill the role that Kat does now.  Also, if you're going to say that Akali snowballs in pubs, how can you deny that Kat snowballs?  Akali's ult hits one person, ONE PERSON.  Kat's ult does a ton of damage to 3 people, and if she gets a kill, she can do the whole thing again.  I've seen Kats absolutely destroy pubs, and with good reason.  She's an overall better hero.
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I disagree. If anything, Diana supersedes Akali, and that's because Diana is better designed (and a touch OP right now). Kat achieves her assassiny role through different means and contributes to a fight in different ways.
Then you're still agreeing with me.  One similar hero has replaced the other because of a better design.  How is that good balance?  Also, how do you prevent this from happening when you're constantly adding new champions with overlapping skills and roles to the game?
Well, first I'd say that they've done an excellent job overall in preventing champions being superseded; the Diana-Akali cast is the only one I can think of offhand where this applies (super-sticky sustained damage semi assassin). Most low-tier champions aren't that way because of design (i.e. some other champion does all the important stuff the way they do, but better), but balance. And of those balance cases, it's sometimes because they have to be that way or the game falls apart (see: pre-rework Eve being < trash tier).

I'm adamantly in favor of a partial or complete kit rework to Akali, and actually most of the original 40/really old champion releases. They were built with a completely different mindset, their kits have a lot of trouble consistently coping, and in general they just look a bit crusty.

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Look at it from the average player's perspective. If you have a bunch of champions that will wipe the floor with you explicitly and only because you don't know the precise means of countering them, why should you bother learning to play?
Why should you bother to learn anything that's difficult in life?

Because some people are wise enough to see that long-term success is better than instant gratification.  Yes, I know we're an instant gratification society, based on getting our pleasure and rewards "now now now", but in the end the things you have to work for are more meaningful than the things you get for free.  This can be empirically shown in psychology.

I do agree with you that there needs to be a balance between game difficulty and insanity, but the way to go about doing that is not to keep nerfing a champion until they're useless outside of pub games, instead of letting people just get better at the game.  They could redesign Akali if that was truly the issue.

But once again, we get into another conundrum (which I mentioned before).  With so many new champions being released, and so many already overlapping roles, eventually the cast will be so big that you can't possibly remake every hero that has become obsolete.  And even if you did do that, the remake of an old champion just makes another champion obsolete in the process.
This isn't life... Some of us play as entertainment. I've put in a lot of long hours learning how to play, but

I would also argue that it's kind of like users of R and Malbolge arguing over whose language is less obscure. Sure, one may be substantially more obtuse/complex/"better", but at that point the distinction is irrelevant. The entry and maintenance cost of playing a MOBA is so high that it's entirely reasonable to ask that some aspects be toned down. MOBAs are the only genre I can think of at this level of difficulty and complexity; the only other games that come close often abuse luck heavily (Roguelikes) or are in a genre of their own (Dorf Fortress).

Riot's really stretching themselves, so it could honestly be that they have more important stuff to do even though Akali does need work. I honestly couldn't say though.

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Yes, there's things Dota has that League doesn't. I personally feel like Riot's character design is leaps and bounds above Dota's, and along with the extra modes they have and the overall style, it's a better choice. Others feel a different way though, and they're perfectly entitled to that opinion ^_^
Perhaps you do like League's "slightly different" balancing style over DotA's (I think you called it) "bludgeon me over the head with difference" style, but the advantage to DotA's way of doing things is that, as a result of the very unique skillsets, the roles don't overlap.

Let's take a look at League of Legends junglers.  You can't possibly say that all of the junglers are equally useful right now, or that they all offer the same amount to the team.  For example, I play Volibear jungle sometimes for fun.  But I also play Irelia and Amumu jungle as well.  Amumu is a better tank that Volibear, and he's a better initiator.  Irelia is a better assassin, and better at chasing and surviving in team fights.  Both Amumu and Irelia jungle faster than Volibear, even though Volibear is technically considered a "jungler".  In fact, whatever Volibear brings to the team as a jungler, other junglers could offer better.

This doesn't happen in DotA.  There are a small amount of junglers, and they all bring something completely different to the team.  No jungler is strictly better than any other jungler.  Naix brings magic immunity, carry, and anti-tank prowess, Enigma is a great pusher, stunner, and has one of the best aoe ults in the game, Enchantress is a carry who can also dominate creeps, making her great at pushing, but also ganking because her ult, Axe is an initiator and tank, but also great for early sidelane ganks, Lycan is kind of useless for awhile, but he emerges from the jungle as one of the hardest melee carries in the game who runs at max speed and can't be slowed.

You can't pick any one jungler in DotA and say the other junglers are just BETTER than that one: They have everything he offers and more.  You can definitely do that with League.  And that's just one example.

The amumu-voli comparison is kind of odd. One's a magic damage tank with strong AoE CC, the other is a low mobility bruiser with a buttload of free stats and high dueling capability. The point of picking Volibear is really to go top, get some farm and kills, and be a 4k HP brick in teamfights who hurts a lot and can't really be moved. He is a bit kill dependent and "fiddly" right now though. Not because anything directly does his job better, but because he needs kit tweaks and a couple buffs maybe. He's honestly not that bad that you couldn't run him top in the average normal and succeed in the right circumstances though.

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I'll turn the question on its head: Why should many new player's game experiences suffer because designers can't be bothered to find ways to make characters work without inordinately punishing lack of knowledge? Because that's basically what a pubstomper is.
Well to a certain extent, players have to learn the game right?

I mean Riot is indirectly shooting themselves in the foot by adding so many new champions that yes, it's a bit unreasonable to ask a new player to learn 200+ champions (in the future) as soon as they start playing.  I agree, that's asking way too much.  But that's Riot's fault.  They don't have to keep adding new things at this rate.  They could literally balance the cast that they have for another 3 years, and still probably have some room for improvement.  Yes, it's overwhelming to ask a player to learn all the heroes abilities and skillsets, so the solution is to obviously stop adding new heroes, instead of making the problem even worse; not to nerf the ones already there so people don't have to learn how to play the game.

Someone asked this of Riot recently. The response was basically "We think we have a long way to go before serious overlap issues start happening, and if it does, we'll take care of it then".

Let's say you are Riot. You want to provide something new and fresh for your players on a regular basis, other than cosmetic stuff. Your options are as follows:
 * Modes
 * Champions
 * Items
 * Map Mechanics

Adding modes fractures your playerbase at an astounding rate, items interact with the game on a lot deeper levels than champions (so its hard to make good ones at any reasonable rate, and I do hope I don't have to explain the issues with piling mechanics into one map =p Champions are the only real way to keep adding content on a regular basis without a MOBA disintegrating into broken mess.

(it's also been ~3-4 weeks between champs for the last 5-10)

I don't think League's champion design is any better or worse than DotA's.  They are both neat in their own way.  League is willing to try new things like non-mana mechanics and Nidalee heroes which is really cool.  On the other hand, they're afraid to add any "game-breaking" abilities, which really puts a limit on what they can add without being "anti-fun".  DotA doesn't seem to care about this.  They'll add whatever would make the game better or more interesting, and if you don't like it then go play something else.

For that reason, there are a lot of neat mechanics and abilities in DotA that will never exist in League.  I like how DotA's designs are a lot more game-changing.  A hero that can steal another's spells, a 4 second aoe stun ultimate, a global silence, a global teleport with an ally, global invisibility, etc.

Sure, mechanics like this which DotA is full of require the player to get better, but in the end you have a better player.  I can take my DotA skills to League and automatically be better than the average player.  I've seen League players try to take their skills to DotA, and they basically have to start over from scratch.  DotA doesn't coddle you.

But at the same time, the simplistic game design of League is also one of its greatest strengths.  I just don't agree that in order to keep it, you have to add new heroes every 2 weeks, and nerf ones that are too good in pubs into the ground.

I think that we arrived at this conclusion in another thread; League is better to play and have fun, but Dota works better as a spectated game and as something super competitive.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #49 on: December 14, 2012, 09:26:11 am »
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I think that we arrived at this conclusion in another thread; League is better to play and have fun, but Dota works better as a spectated game and as something super competitive.
That's fair.  I guess it takes a special breed of person to play DotA 2 on a daily basis.  Even I can't do that, but then again I'm super stressed from finals.

I'm the kind of person who always enjoys a challenge, but the challenge has to be based off of my stress and anxiety levels.

When I have no stress or anxiety, I like pushing myself to the limit, and I'm typically a godlike player in the process.  However, when I'm stressed or worried, it's just the opposite; and I really have to tone down what I do or it just makes it worse.  You kind of saw yesterday how that turns out haha.
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Offline relmz32

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #50 on: December 14, 2012, 11:57:03 am »
I'll hopefully have a reply for this thread about the different roles later today. Some interesting things being discussed, especially Katarina vs Diana vs Akali.

While these champs appear similar, they have different specialties, and more importantly, their laning potential is vastly different.
Akali is good against low cc champs who also cannot escape like gangplank, but is very bad against champs who can do aoe damage to creeps and push waves hard like rumble, morgana, or katarina.
Katarina is a great creep wave pusher, can poke and harass very effectively, and can hold her own against morgana, but does very poorly against champs with better mobility and burst, like kassadin or longer range, like Lux or Urgot.
Diana is okay at pushing waves, but is very good against low mobility champs, and has a shield which helps her turn around assassination attempts and survive ganks.
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #51 on: December 14, 2012, 05:09:10 pm »
Diana may have a bit of a concussion after the nerf bat, but she'll recover quickly
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Offline Cyborg

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #52 on: December 15, 2012, 01:20:47 pm »
Wait a minute, I have to mod my interface settings? So we all agree it sucks ?
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Offline RCIX

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #53 on: December 15, 2012, 10:39:40 pm »
Wait a minute, I have to mod my interface settings? So we all agree it sucks ?
?

Mispost?
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Offline Cyborg

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #54 on: December 15, 2012, 10:43:40 pm »
Wait a minute, I have to mod my interface settings? So we all agree it sucks ?
?

Mispost?

No, go back a couple pages.
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #55 on: December 15, 2012, 11:14:19 pm »
hes referring to the engima's item changer thing. And yeah, it really helps given the new shop tbh
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Offline RCIX

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #56 on: December 15, 2012, 11:40:03 pm »
Wait a minute, I have to mod my interface settings? So we all agree it sucks ?
Enigma's item changer just writes JSON config files that League accepts in order to construct custom recommended item lists. It's an API thing added at player request. Not that the UI sucks or anything :S

If I can steer the discussion a bit, something I've had frustration with in MOBAs with random/single player matchmaking: I'm upset that League tells me on one hand to communicate and coordinate with allies, and on the other hand the method of matchmaking tells me that no matter what I do, I will not be able to reliably do that. (Not even a "most games" thing; I can guarantee that no matter what, I'll run into stubborn idiots, jerks, or people who don't listen often enough)

"Standard" answers:
 * Just work with your team (as I said, that won't fix it anywhere near completely and I want a complete solution)
 * Just get better (this doesn't solve it either, you just rise to a level where games are broken again)
 * Life isn't fair, deal with it (...wat)
« Last Edit: December 15, 2012, 11:55:15 pm by RCIX »
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #57 on: December 16, 2012, 01:21:03 am »
I believe the fabled TreeEskimo once told us these words of wisdom: Not every game is going to be something you can control. 40% of the time, your team will win on their own. Another 40% of the time, your team will lose on their own, and nothing you do can stop that. Its that final 20% of the time that you actually matter - And that is what you focus on.

I am perfectly fine with losing a ranked game most of the time. I am usually sad that I lost it when it is not my fault, but its not that big of a deal to me. I can accept that their team was better than my team. Oftentimes in these situations I will have learned something about a particular laning situation, and I am ok with that. If my team wants to win on their own, and actually does it, I'm pretty happy. It is indeed 'free' elo.

The other 20% where I matter, those are the only times I can really look at games critically. Usually theres something I couldve done to help win, or something that I did that directly won us the game.

I think what I am saying is that its not going to be remotely possible to win games 100% of the time - its certainly going to be possible to win more games than you lose, on the assumption that you arent actually playing against people your skill level, but that overall some games will not be winnable.
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Offline RCIX

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #58 on: December 16, 2012, 05:32:44 am »
I believe the fabled TreeEskimo once told us these words of wisdom: Not every game is going to be something you can control. 40% of the time, your team will win on their own. Another 40% of the time, your team will lose on their own, and nothing you do can stop that. Its that final 20% of the time that you actually matter - And that is what you focus on.

I am perfectly fine with losing a ranked game most of the time. I am usually sad that I lost it when it is not my fault, but its not that big of a deal to me. I can accept that their team was better than my team. Oftentimes in these situations I will have learned something about a particular laning situation, and I am ok with that. If my team wants to win on their own, and actually does it, I'm pretty happy. It is indeed 'free' elo.

The other 20% where I matter, those are the only times I can really look at games critically. Usually theres something I couldve done to help win, or something that I did that directly won us the game.

I think what I am saying is that its not going to be remotely possible to win games 100% of the time - its certainly going to be possible to win more games than you lose, on the assumption that you arent actually playing against people your skill level, but that overall some games will not be winnable.

Step back and think about this objectively. Is a game wherein the player only has a 20% chance of having a meaningful influence well designed (assuming its not supposed to be gambling)?
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: So League of Legends Season 3...
« Reply #59 on: December 16, 2012, 08:23:52 am »
I believe the fabled TreeEskimo once told us these words of wisdom: Not every game is going to be something you can control. 40% of the time, your team will win on their own. Another 40% of the time, your team will lose on their own, and nothing you do can stop that. Its that final 20% of the time that you actually matter - And that is what you focus on.

I am perfectly fine with losing a ranked game most of the time. I am usually sad that I lost it when it is not my fault, but its not that big of a deal to me. I can accept that their team was better than my team. Oftentimes in these situations I will have learned something about a particular laning situation, and I am ok with that. If my team wants to win on their own, and actually does it, I'm pretty happy. It is indeed 'free' elo.

The other 20% where I matter, those are the only times I can really look at games critically. Usually theres something I couldve done to help win, or something that I did that directly won us the game.

I think what I am saying is that its not going to be remotely possible to win games 100% of the time - its certainly going to be possible to win more games than you lose, on the assumption that you arent actually playing against people your skill level, but that overall some games will not be winnable.

Step back and think about this objectively. Is a game wherein the player only has a 20% chance of having a meaningful influence well designed (assuming its not supposed to be gambling)?

Any player versus player game when you randomly pick your allys and enemies.

It's no different then fps games, except in those games since there is little to no chance of snowballing, since there are no levels nor item builds.
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