I'm not sure how much you're able to say about the current state of the game without getting into trouble, but since they're usually on the boards, i'm curious as to what they think as they tend to be the more helpful(and listening) section of riot(or is it more like outsourcing rather than official employees?)
Why would we get in trouble? :o we’re just players like you - we aren’t prohibited from saying anything about our opinions on the game state at all. You’ll find some of us hang around the gameplay boards and try to reply to things with analysis.
That being said, I tend to like the balance of the game. Logically, they’re doing about as good a job as they can be doing. This tends to result in me being pounded on by others who think that everything and their mother is 100% broken, needs removed completely, and League just shouldn’t exist.
There’s some things that are overtuned. Most things, however, are not, and very few are truly “gamebreaking”.
A comment on our “jobs” - we aren’t riot employees at all and have no special riot affiliation - we were just selected to have a few extra buttons on the boards to help clean things up. We are first and foremost players, and second volunteers - no connection to anything Riot other than that Riot obviously is the one who owns the boards and monitors the volunteer program.
I mean, to some extent I don't comment much because, frankly, the boards aren't the best place for legitimate design discussions right now. A lot of our community is, understandably, highly outspoken about things that they think are problems, and are often quick to propose solutions that may not have been fully analyzed. I totally get that, but it makes me personally (as a very analytical person, sometimes to a fault) get sometimes frustrated with balance discussions here, as there tends to be a lot of emotional responses and not as much thoughtful analysis as I seek in such conversations.
That said, I think the balance team is sometimes a little too cautious, but is normally very good. A lot of the problems we see cropping up are typically more due to the evolving meta than any specific champion outlier (exceptions exist), and that's not something the balance team alone can really address. Some of it are the result of large ecosystems of the game (itemization, for example) that is being slowly improved as time, designer availability, and resources all become available, and some of it is improved by new champion designs that better fit with League's current design philosophies.
I think expecting the balance team to bat 100% is unrealistic on a game the size and scale of League, as every single change has dramatic ripple effects. Their track record is largely pretty good though, even if it takes a little longer than some people like, but that's a reality of design -- it's easy to apply a fast solution to a problem, but it's FAR more beneficial to wait a bit and apply the RIGHT solution to a problem. Even then, however, there will always be people that think any given change is the wrong change, and that's also just a reality of design.
Oh, and the reason for more nerfs than buffs for problematic champions is that champions who are very weak are often that way due to kit issues (such as kits that get too easily powerful when tuned to have solid damage, or kits that are just struggling to function), and buffing them can have serious consequences. Alternatively, you get into an arms race where you have to buff 50 champions up to the level of 4 outliers. It's FAR easier to prune the top and help out those struggling champions you can help out in a healthy manner than risk upsetting the apple cart to mass-buff all under-performing champions.
I realize I'm late on this, but I'm generally supportive of what Riot is up to.
My main gripe with the community is that they simply refuse to be at all sympathetic about the amount of work Riot has to do to deliver changes. Players act like these things can happen overnight without destroying the game, and they simply can't.
I'm as happy as the next guy to admit when I think Riot has done something wrong, but I think that tone is really, really important and gets ignored by most people. I typically get embroiled in conversations about that topic, which means many people don't realize that I also:
We have a lot of the same issues that other people have. The biggest difference that I notice between me and the Boards is that I expect work to take months longer than average Boards user. And I'm genuinely appreciative of their work, even if I don't like it that much. Zoe is a cool design and a fun champ, even if I hate her guts when my opponents play her. I think she needs work, and she's getting work. So I don't have nearly the same level of beef with Riot that others do. I think they're doing a great job.
I think that Riot does try to do a good job, though that doesn't mean I always agree with their decisions. Case in point the removal of Dominion as a permanent game mode: that was my main mode of play as I'm not a big fan of playing on SR and was saddened to hear that Dominion was going bye-bye. I did try out Definitely Not Dominion and disliked it because the vast majority of the time whoever won the very first team fight at the center shrine would just go on to win the game (not always but usually in my experience), which wasn't like the back-and-forth nature of Dominion. I think that Dominion could have stuck around and been more enjoyable for more players had Riot made some actual effort to keep it up to date, but since they didn't all we can hope is that it comes back again (hopefully as a permanent game mode) in the future.
