u/Alive-Artist-2321

League of Legends (top emerald)

cons:

1. Low skill ceiling for mechanical skill expression

2. Bad meta imo (roaming supports, ranged top, mage bot, tank neutralizer lanes top)

3. Overall top role is low agency and aggression is punished as a result of the meta. Not dying is usually winning. Top is at its best imo when its a duel lane against two melee's that have dynamic trade patterns. This usually means that the champ has long and short trades. On top of this flex picks make draft especially annoying at higher elos.

4. Long match lengths cause player frustration resulting in toxicity

5. Toxicity is meme-ified so players will casually flame lowering match quality

6. Encyclopedic knowledge required to reach high rank (This is a pro depending on disposition maybe)

pros:

1. Exceptional skill ceiling in terms of game to game variance (due to cast size, items, runes, summoners, role variation, etc.). Adaptability is very thereby very rewarded.

2. Game is generally balanced patch-to-patch. Players can always pick up a meta champ, but mastery is incredibly important in league due to game to game variance. Any way you can control against variance helps you very much.

3. Character designs are top tier usually

Deadlock:

Cons:

1. In open beta currently. (stale meta, poor balance, bugs)

2. FPS MOBA can be overwhelming (I know overwatch is considered a moba as well, but im talking about having lane assignments and a jungle)

3. Long match lengths can lead to fatigue and some (but less than league) player frustration

4. Ranked system is not good imo (too grindy as a result of overdone derank protection). you can climb with a 50% winrate currently.

Pros:

1. High mechanical skill Ceiling

2. High Macro skill ceiling

3. Very positive community

4. Incredible (my favortie) Character designs.

5. The game feels like a tug of war rather than a stomp or be stomped ON AN INDIVIDUAL PLAYER level. League is a tug of war as well, but you dont feel that as the individual player. Basically its very hard to be completely shut out of the game.

6. Has good culture with in game voice.

Apex (solo/duo): (roughly 2.5k hours never grinded past diamond as I'd prefer to play games with my irl friends and they would get too frustrated to want to grind)

Pros:

1. Highest individual mechanical agency imo out of all the games here (barring widowmaker maybe)

2. Roller recently nerfed by 4% accuracy on average.

3. Immersive world

4. Incredible art team

5. Middling game to game variance. (could be in con)

6. VERY VERY LOW PLAYER FRUSTRATION (ur dead go next)

Cons:

1. recent character designs (specifically gameplay) less appealing.

2. balance team decisions often highly questionable throughout the years.

3. Ranked is mostly grind and playing with good stacks rather than skill.

4. Bad conditions for mechanical skill development due to tempo of battle royale.

5. Lowest room for macro/strategical outplay.

6. Not the best anti-cheat at times though things have improved considerably over the years. (destroyer 3000)

7. High visual clutter nowadays.

8. Bloodhound rework was poorly received immediately and remains to have little play at all ranks.

Overwatch: currently playing in emerald as soldier76 and climbing quickly (solo mostly some duo with a tank)

Pros:

1. Appears to me as the most objectively balanced and subjectively fair.

2. Very low player frustration (short match lengths and generally positive community).

3. Currently feels fresh with dmon, schion, anran, cat, domini, frieja, and hat guy.

4. Good net code (league client and apex netcode/tickrate)

5. Good anti-cheat

6. High game to game variance as a newer player or if you swap heroes

7. Low visual clutter (except anran imo)

8. Best balancing act addressing the pro to plat one patch dillema imo

Cons:

1. Could still be stale for long time players.

2. Sierra.

3. Personally not a fan of the skins for solider idk genuinely this section is hard to fill out.

Typed at start of match that it was my promotion game to emerald. I win sett lane and after a early kill I do the classic wait to 6 taxi to lane strat with ult on trynda. Aurora then types come top more after that singular 5 seconds gank then proceeds to take all of my cs for most of the rest of the game and die under tower to sett.

https://preview.redd.it/7zthp9xodt9h1.png?width=1051&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f5f8727fd12c2d857e72e108bc9f6c8c1fbd6a4

The current ult heavily favors three stacks in a game where duo/solo queue is not an option unlike most other competitive games. I dont mind three stacks leveraging unfair mechanics if its skill expressive through "<3 THE POWER :3 OF TEAMWORK :D", but Maggie ball>drill> 2 axle ults> axle tac on flank is completely brainless and incredibly effective vs non three stack teams. I dont want goats meta, but I also dont want three stacks running through the entire lobby in diamond. The recon class is non-existent besides valk, because the meta has devolved into burst reset and burst aggro. Am I having fun with the new season? yes, but I just wish the design team would have thought through axles ult a bit more. Rn this is just a flash back to prime horizon. I understand the parallel design-wise between a headstrong legend that goes deep into enemies lines and a suicide drone, but personally I would have preferred if the character just went all in on the movement freak fantasy. Give her infinite gradually accelrating skating (given she doesnt run into something) with higher turn rate for 30 seconds and wall riding since the community has been vocal about wanting it for the past 7 YEARS and we have had events in the past that feature wall riding. That would have been leagues more interesting than this accessible ult design that has a shallow game play loop. Side note: bang smoke and Wattson pylon being completely ineffective vs the electrical drone that searches for enemies is dumb, the tac should be much louder radius wise, and clutch 1v1s being resolved with a drone regardless of axle's hp is lame.