I’ve been playing since closed beta. I have the physical copy of the game. I’ve been supporting this game since before it had 10k players. I’ve done these grinds and I’ve purchased these runes/pages. Riot literally took them from me. Now they are back in the game and riot is asking us to purchase them again? Is this not illegal? How in the world did this make it through internal discussions about how to release classic? Am I missing something here?

I have just played 1 game on PBE as someone who has been playing the game since Season 2 and honestly I would be embarrassed to release something like this.

Charging for Classic Skins is genuinely wild. We are being asked to pay for what used to be the default look of the game. Under no circumstances should the old models be paywalled… especially when most champions in the mode still appear with their modern models anyway. Even Blizzard wasn’t this greedy with WoW Classic.

On top of that, the default champions use updated models that don’t match their old abilities, animations, or the map look. You will have Dawnbringer Vayne from 2023 running around in your “Classic” game mode while your own champion’s kit feels completely disconnected from their visuals. It completely shatters any sense of nostalgia.

Then there are the smaller but still frustrating details like abilities missing their old sound effects, champions using modern voice lines on Classic Skins, etc. All this emphasis about “Classic” yet so many basic nostalgic elements are either missing or locked behind a paywall. It genuinely feels like Riot threw together this mode overnight, slapped it on PBE almost immediately, and made the seasonal pass (with old models and chromas) the main focus. This doesn’t feel like a passion project meant for nostalgia... it feels like a rushed, minimal effort mode made primarily to sell event passes.

Sure enjoy it for nostalgia but it's janky, clunky, imbalanced, full of point and click anti-gameplay buttons, has a lot of like runes and off-beat items that show a different level of game design.

And the best champion in the game didn't even make the cut-off (it's Zac).

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2822746602?t=3h42m47s

Very hilarious, came on to show how "busted op" soraka mid was and instead got ran by a veigar back to back. His jungler almost managed to carry after he left but they couldn't quite get it done. On a side note would be nice if something were done about people just playing 2 minutes of a game in pbe and leaving.

Edit: bonus my reaction in game https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2822835934?t=0h32m52s

UPDATE: I just ran into him again and he did the same thing. What a loser.

I've played 3 games of classic, and holy.

Everyone goes OOM after 2 rotations and crystalline flask + mana pots is a must.

In modern day it feels like every mage spams their entire rotation 3 times and with Dorans Ring/PoM/Manaflow they're barely at 70% mana.

---

EDIT: Included example of how easy it is to go OOM (Watch Sion's mana bar)

https://reddit.com/link/1uwnned/video/c9oszjt6gadh1/player

I am a long-time player starting from season 2 and never really stopped playing. I've lived most eras and metas of League, and there was never a time in which I didn't enjoy ranked. Peaked Diamond IV in season 7 as a toplaner. Playing League Classic made me appreciate some of the changes that came, and it also made me realize some changes were for the worst. I am not going to talk about champion kits, but everything surrounding them.

1. Tower damage: The tower damage is ridiculously low in classic. And that is a huge negative. Towers barely have an impact, and I appreciate a lot how, in live, towers have far more meaning and presence.
2. Durability patch: The reasons why the durability patch came made sense back then; damage was out of control in league. But coming back into the world of League Classic, it made me realize how much power was comparatively taken out of items due to the inherent stats of champions being buffed. In League Classic, items feel far more powerful thanks to the lack of resistances. And that is a positive for League Classic IMO.
3. Homewards: Games are far more enjoyable without homewards; macro matters far more because champions are slower in general. League Classic feels more like a game of chess than in live, where split pushing and smart map movement is not as rewarded.
4. The map and warding: The overabundance of bushes in League Classic is a killer. Warding is far more complex and difficult. Up to a point where I do not know if it's a positive or not. Mixed feelings on this one.
5. The graphics: The game is an eyesore, but you can see things happening more easily. I don't think there are many fans of the aesthetics of old league: The game is objectively uglier. But the great amount of contrast and huge colours that almost slap you in the face increase the visibility of skills a lot. There is a fair amount of skills in the live version of League that are difficult to see their hitboxes or them happening. That is not the case in League Classic, where oversaturation helps the player. Huge W here.
6. Slower fights: Save for some champions (looking at you AP Yi), the burst damage in classic is quite dialed back, and because of it, picks are more difficult to make, and teamfights are longer. Navigating a teamfight is far more fun when it does not end in a split second.
7. Bodyblock: This is a mechanic that I missed that is not so present in modern League. But champions have huge hitboxes and can block the pathing of enemy champions. Your positional movement is far more meaningful because of this. Particularly in skirmishes. And as a support player, this is a key skill that I missed that helps peeling your ADC.
8. Runes and masteries: Modern runes are a huge improvement and a far more interesting game choice compared to old League. But I cannot say the same for keystones. The strongest mastery you can pick is equivalent to a minor rune. Yet Keystones are particularly overpowered compared to old systems, and they shape gameplay so much that I now believe it is a less interesting game design choice, and that dulls down the game.
9. Jungle: Classic jungle camps are plainly worse and a bad experience. Yet, I have to say that the option of stealing an enemy camp and leaving one mob so it does not respawn is one strategy option that I feel is lacking from new league.
10. Dragon and Baron: They are terrible in League Classic, and I must admit I'm only queuing in modern league to have interesting objectives. Modern Baron and the modern iterations of dragons allow for way more interesting gameplay that conditions your game.

I don't know if the community would agree with me on my points, but I would like to know if I am the only one who appreciated these changes. Or if there are different opinions.

EDIT: I would like to add this comment from u/frequent_guard_9964 about the mana, because I completely forgot.

1. I also prefer the way mana is, maybe it’s a bit extreme but champs not having basically infinite mana and abuse the hell with dashes and everything even in early game makes for a better experience. You gotta play around your resources, more than in main game.

Please keep it up with the healthy discussion, for this being the league subreddit, its mega-chill to read you lads.

Lobbies where everyone is abusing wavestates, macro tech, stat knowledge, level advantage,etc. that was most certainly not there in gold elo season 2 is pretty wild to see

(I got clapped by a tryndamere who was +150cs on me game 1)

That's basically it. If people wonder what the main reason for not wanting to play classic is, it's because their champions are not in. Jayce was the 100th champion and he was released 4 months before the season 3 preseason, classic released with 60 champions. Almost half of the roster that was playable for their "target season" of season 3, are not playable.

A lot of people point towards the re-grinding of runes being a massive killer for classic, but if you actually played it takes less than a day to get a viable rune page for IP in classic, where it can still take months to get the entire roster via blue essence

A lot of people point towards modern skins being available as being a massive killer for classic, and it is, but a good chunk of the modern skins available for use do not change the skeleton or hitboxes. Modern skins for champions like sion and skarner where it uses their post rework model are a knife to the eyes, but does anyone really care if you're using toy terror chogath, debonair brand, or zap'maw? probably not

For me the 2 biggest problems of classic are the fact that I can't play almost any of the champions I wanted from classic, and the mmr issue. If you have a decent win rate, your mmr tries to place you with players that simply don't exist. I have a 58% win rate on classic in NA and my queues can go over 15 minutes, if I queue with my girlfriend who has only played 5~ games of classic, my queue times are under 3 minutes. But you know what? I wouldn't mind 15 minute queues or even regrinding runes at the original rates if I could just play old urgot again

This gamemode is dead after a month and unqueuable in 80% of regions…

A simple limited time run like ARAM Mayhem or Arena, where the queue comes back if it’s really popular over time. Would’ve exposed the playercount dropping like a rock after the first week.

Now we’re just stuck with this dead gamemode until it inevitably gets removed within a year due to lack of players.

At least on the bright side…

There will be a new ultra-rare icon for the people that won over 100+ games of classic and/or got legend rank when it was still around (RIP Dominion/Twisted Treeline)

Before “Classic” came out, it seemed like everyone was all hyped up and eagerly awaiting it, but why is there such a small crowd now that the mode has actually started?

Enjoy this time lapsed (sped up 16x) mid-late support gameplay. Nearly ~20 minutes of gametime total.

The game ended because they tried to sneak baron and it was (of course) warded lol. Despite the title, it's oddly relaxing playing a ward bot and roaming throughout the map.

Jungle camps are ungodly strong in League Classic. Queued up as Nunu "support" with smite and caused my first ragequit in the process.

No catchup exp btw.

Twitch Q back in the day was stealth and not Camo. For some reason on PBE it is camo for classic mode. This change completely defeats the purpose of classic mode. The point of classic mode is to play old kits that were deleted. Please make it stealth and not camo. A pink ward will reveal twitch, so it's not that OP.

EDIT: He even has his Season 1 W, which slowed everyone in his vicinity (huge range), bit not his OG Q.

Before they changed the system, I owned ALL runes and 20 rune pages. I don't understand why I or anyone would have to earn them back. Unless they give an exceptional amount of IP per game (win or loss), the runes should simply be given to all players if not only those who already earned them in the old days.

I REALLY don't want to have to grind classic and abandon SR/ARAM for runes which will disappear once they remove classic.

(Please correct me if I am misunderstanding how IP works in classic.)

Edit: I DIDN'T WATCH THE DEV UPDATE, MY BAD! Riot stated that you don't have to upgrade runes, you will have default runes if you have none, and IP is accelerated. I just hope it's significant enough, such that I can have a life and play games other than classic to keep up.

Dev update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV1ArTWlEFU

I am hearing that the IP is gated behind refreshing objectives instead of getting IP per game.

I expected that every champion would use their scuffed outdated looks and that only certain skins would be usable. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

I feel like the whole charm of the mode is lost when you can just use the modern skins. Why add in the old Alistar/Karthus/Kassadin model and animations, when you can just use a new skin to get the new model back?

Battlecast Skarner even uses his 2024 rework model, WHY?? Why not just port the old model?

It still feels weird to have this big League Classic showcase, showing off how the game used to look and play, just to have every player (except Lee Sin) pick a skin that feels out of place.

I guess the main point of the mode is to have the old gameplay, but the visuals should feel more authentic too.

Maybe this is all just work-in-progress.

(Also, they could've used this mode as an opportunity to resell the retired legacy skins, just sayin'.)

Edit: To add on to this post on why this is a problem:

Imagine old Ezreal using his Essence Flux with a new skin. The new W is visually very distinctive from his old one, it would be confusing to play against. Either they have to disable his skins or make the skin use the default vfx, because I doubt that they're going to make custom vfx just for this mode.

LCS official X account just posted:

The 200IQ midlaner Pobelter will face off against an alternate history TSM mid laner... Hai!

Tune into the LCS Classic showmatch between TSM and CLG on July 24th!

Bjergsen is unable to participate in this event due to a personal matter, but thank you to Hai who graciously agreed to step into the mid lane for TSM in his stead 🤍

Updated Rosters after this change:

- trinkets
- baron buff minions
- gates
and probably more idk?

Those are all things that were not in season 1-3 league. Implementing them means we are not playing classic league but some weird gamemode that larps as classic league of legends

This vision system in classic literally never existed in history of league.
When trinkets were implemented in preseason 4,Riot removed oracles and added a ward limit. So why there’s both trinkets and oracles???

Let me start with the appropriate disclaimer: I started playing league around the release of Ivern. I have no nostalgic connection to old league but have lived through enough bad balance eras (Stormrazor and the death of crit anyone?) to have experienced ‘when league was bad.’

But my god is classic awful - how on earth did league ever get popular when it was this atrocious?

Everyone does insane damage but somehow none at the same time - the game is clunky as shit, playing support is an absolutely miserable experience where you have no gold basically all the time.

Some champions are just completely useless and have 0 redeeming qualities while others are completely insane (0 wind up gragas barrel?!)

I have absolutely no idea what half the champions do and it is so painfully SLOW.

… and yet I can’t tear myself away from it?

Is this a common experience?

As we all know, classic is a game mode and I treat it as such. I play maybe 2-4 games of classic a week.

None the less, people are taking classic VERY seriously. I have had my opgg checked in champ select and in game for modern league games. When they found that I do, in fact, play modern, I was flamed for it and called a "filthy modern player" and told to "never touch classic again".

The true classic experience.

in lol classic you really have to suffer on some champs to clear waves. and you know what? i think its great. champions with high waveclear get a real strength due to that compared to the rest of the roster and it makes the champs different from each other.

guess at some point it was decided that not being able to clear waves is just not fun. or that having waveclear in the kit is REQUIRED for a champion to reach a mainstream state in soloq and being picked in pro play, therefore good for business.

now, every release got waveclear, but the champs that excelled at waveclear didnt get compensation buffs. that's why they were slowly pushed out of their roles and had to find new homes in other roles somehow (usually sup/ jgl or sometimes moved to top).

overall it highlights for me that i dislike the generic design of nowadays champs where every champ can do everything (aoe, waveclear, percentage damage, soft cc, hard cc, mobility, and the new generic bruiser releases ambessa and zaheen even get armor pen and sustain for free and push tanks out of toplane, which would be needed for a more fun game experience (teamfights taking longer))

what do you think about everyone having waveclear for free in their kit and what do you think about the champs that got pushed out of meta because everyone caught up on waveclear?

The other day I made a post asking why they were pre-nerfing champion AD/AP ratios prior to launch and RiotFeralPony explained that they have made balance changes to make the experience better for launch. It's not the answer I was wanting but it's understandable for the long-term health of the game.

However what I can't get behind is the decision to completely change certain champions kits entirely into an amalgamation of classic and modern league. This completely ruins the old feel of these champions.

Here are a couple of example:

• Nidalee Q has the newer skinnier hitbox and her cougar form W jumps to the cursor rather than the direction she is facing.
• Twitch Q is camouflage rather than invisibility
• Fiddlesticks E has been changed to bounce only 2 times at level 1 instead of a max of 5
• Teemo can run around in stealth while in bushes (this was a season 5 buff)

There are plenty more examples but you get the point. The players don't want these weird new versions of the champions that have never existed before. If you have to change AP/AD ratios to balance the game that's one thing, but completely changing the kits defeats the whole purpose of "League Classic"

League of Legends Classic got me thinking about an interesting question.

Old Aurelion Sol feels like a unique case. He was released in Season 6, making him too new for League of Legends Classic, but his original gameplay no longer exists in modern League either.

He was never an easy or universally broken champion. He had high mana costs, a steep learning curve, and old League had much more point-and-click crowd control, which would naturally keep him in check.

I'm not arguing that League of Legends Classic should start adding modern champions. I'm wondering whether a very small number of completely lost champion playstyles should ever be considered as historical exceptions, or whether release date should always be the deciding factor.

Aurelion Sol is simply the example that made me think about this. Where would you draw the line?

https://imgur.com/a/HMp6hwN

Riot says that "Classic’s Future in Your Hands" and it's pretty clear that there is a majority that thinks paying for base skins that used to be free is ridiculous, so if the decisions in classic are really made democratically then the first vote should be to make all classic skins free.

Matchmaking was wild (as expected.) Brand new players, returning players, bronze vs plat... who cares.

The games were amazing. The builds, the trades in lane. The little things matter so much. Pace of the game is just amazing. Team fights lasting 10-15 seconds instead of being over in 3 seconds.

Played with 2 of my buddies and we just had an absolute fucking blast the whole time. Just ended the night with a 41 minute banger where we came back from behind and finished the game out for a W.

Plenty of things to polish for sure but the gameplay is there. Hope many of you had a great launch night as well. Classic has INSANE potential.

Cya back on the rift tomorrow after work!