A few days ago someone asked me a very weird question regarding league of legends. I’ve been playing the game for the last 10 years now with a lot of ups and downs and have had a fair share of questions being asked but this one caught me by surprise. Not only that I actually had to pause for a minute and think very hard for the answer. So he was can a LoL game last forever?
Naturally the first thing that comes in mind is that if it’s a dead even tie it may very well last forever but then I started doing some more research and digging based on my experience with the game. Slowly but sure I started narrowing down some variables that may affect that answer and I formed a matrix to properly answer the question.
After a few hours of playing around I formed a bunch of helper questions that I will go over below to properly answer this. You’d ask why ask questions to answer a question? That’s a very valid point but the truth of the matter the question in place is also very vague that has some things that are not defined. For example will the game have equal players, will it even have any players etc.
Without losing time I actually took some help from some of my challenger and master friends which are better than me to validate my theories and I came up with the answer which I’m going to describe below.
Is There a Max Time For a LoL Game
Before we successfully answer if a lol game can last forever we need to define if it has a maximum time. Based on the game rules the answer is no but practically speaking most games would have ended by the 40th minute. Now granted this may change based on the season changes and what not some seasons offered a faster game play with quick turn around, other seasons offered more of a balanced defensive game play so games went on forever. I mean in my gaming history I’ve had games that went over an hour especially at around season 6 and 7 where things where in lower stats than now.
So back to my second question theoretically speaking LoL has no max time for a game to end. This means if things are even it can go on for a very long time and for the reasons we discussed this never practically happens so that leads us to why this never happens and it will also give us an answer to our original question.
Why A LoL Game Does Not Last Forever
Now that we have out of the way that in LoL history the game may never last forever lets try to decipher why as the code algorithm technically allows this to happen since there’s not set limit to it.
Below I’m going to outline a set of reasonings and scenarios that I came up with on why this happens:
- If there’s no one in game, ie both teams are idle or sitting at the fountain it will end up in a minion fight. So you’d naturally ask since the minions are always equal spawning in both sides that will never end as they kill each other right? Well no, there’s cases where one of the two sides of the minions may target a specific minion. More specifically let’s assume 2 minions from one side are hitting 1 minion on the other side. That single minion will die out faster than the other enemy side which means one side minions will win the minion fight! Similarly it could be 3 minions hitting one etc. Since the minions targeting each other is basically a random generated attack by the game this could keep happening over and over. Eventually the side that has had the highest random group minions attacking the other will win and kill the tower which will bring the game to an end. Again this scenario is if there’s no champions in the game!
- Let’s consider now the easier scenario where there’s players playing the champions. Here basically again in theory this fight could go on forever however there’s a stat advantage that’s going to happen sooner or later due to objectives. More specifically as you probably already know dragons and barons give stats to the players which allow them to have better pushing power into the towers but also to be able to kill the towers easier. That means if your minions are buffed let’s say with more attack damage they will always win. Similarly your champions get buffs and in a team fight even if everyone has all their items in one team will be dealing potentially more damage allowing them to win the fight. Over time this could build up and give a much bigger edge to one team making it easier for them to be successful into victory ending the game.
- The example I gave previously was all good and stuff but I committed one important detail and this is naturally scaling champions. More specifically think in terms of the veigars, nasus etc. These champions basically scale as the game goes on forever. They both gain more damage over time increasing their stats and becoming more powerful. If either team has those in their side eventually they will just win the game due to bare damage. Imagine a single veigar ulti one shoting an enemy champion simply because he has 3000 ap. Veigar has no cap at how much damage he can deal since his passive allows him to get extra AP for everyone minion he kills with his q. Nasus works in the same way but he basically stacks AD and can literally use a single Q to kill an enemy champion! As you can imagine this alone will end the game eventually in favor of the team that has the scaling champions!
My Experience
So now that I gave you my reasoning matrix of why I think league of legends game can but not practically last forever I want to give you some of my experience playing the game. There has been times where I am playing LoL and the game feels like it’s lasting forever but in reality it’s only 30 minutes in. So for someone this could be considered metaphorically as if the game is lasting forever. This generally happens if you are not having a good time at all and you want to get out of it as soon as possible. But it can also mean that the game is a lot of time and you are using so much energy that it’s taxing to your mental health to win and gain elo.
My personal experience with that is very prominent especially on days where I’m tired I just feel that games never end in those days I have to put extra energy to make them happen so I just end up playing less. I have also had days where I’m doing so good that the algorithm just gives me harder and harder opponents which means I have to put more effort to carry my team. Those games also feel like they are lasting forever as I’m trying super hard to carry. When you are trying super hard obviously a small win can feel like you are climbing mountain Everest or even worst!
I want to close with a last example that has happened to me and I’m sure to most of you playing League. Toxicity is basically prominent in the NA servers and I’m sure in other regions of the world. Toxic people can ruin the fun of a game and want you to leave as soon as possible. Some of them refuse to surrender dragging you in with them. Besides being frustrating to everyone these games seem to last forever and generally they are a never ending battle of getting rid of the toxic player. Luckily Riot introduced in the last seasons the surrender vote so it’s easier now to escape them unless you are matched with some try hard players that don’t care about the toxic guy and just want to win the game. I believe in Season 13 Riot is working on some changes where that can be eliminated and in my opinion will vastly improve the gameplay making those never ending games easier to finish.