Boards›Dev Corner

Champion Gameplay Values 2016

RiotRiot Scruffy·2/4/2016, 7:59:50 PM·1 votes·91,109 views

Hey everyone! So when I moved from the champ update team to the champion team this january, one of the first things we did as a group was to break down our values and evaluate where our 2014-2015 champions had landed relative to them.

The champs we evaluated: Velkoz Braum Gnar Azir Kalista RekSai Bard Ekko TahmKench Kindred Illaoi Jhin

When we talk about values we mean “components of what we think is a good champion.” You might remember our six design values for League of Legends ( http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/dev-blog-design-values-league-legends ), which are still relevant here (you might see some), but as our design philosophies have evolved, so have our values. In the future we’ll probably pull out the “big” values to share on a larger platform, but in this exercise we wanted to just talk about our present-day influences.

By the end of our meeting, we had come to some clear conclusions as a group (the 7 champion designers + me) and I wanted to share them with you. Basically what we wanted in our design values, and where we succeeded or can do better. Also, some brief explanations are added to explain what the value means, or what we think the effects of its use has been.

Values that we felt were about right:

  • Decision Based Mastery - The amount of decisions and their impact on the champion’s success have been successful in retrospect. Champions with rich decisions end up keeping interest for much longer than those without (E.g. Bard vs. Warwick). This is a high bar, and really shows how much we’ve grown since the early days. So proud :)

  • Reason to be picked (strategic identity) - The unique adds that many of these champions are bringing to the game are going to help them stay unique and relevant for years to come.

  • Thematic synergy - Different champs deliver slightly more or less of this than others, but overall we have been finding the core thematic of each character and delivering gameplay that supports it.

  • Respect for old champs - In the days of yore, we’ve been bad neighbors to the old champs of LoL and cannibalized their mechanics (and often just made them stronger). These days we’re doing a good job of respecting the existing champs.

We haven’t been hitting 100% perfection in all of our values for Champion Design, and I wanted to share some of the ones we felt could be improved:

Values we want a lot more of:

  • Counterplay - We care a lot about the long term health of the characters we release, so this was a big one. Making sure that intended weaknesses are present or that the character doesn’t have so many tools that they have no weakness are big opportunities to make this better.

  • Accessibility - We started this conversation by trying to identify where the average difficulty for our new champs should be. We landed around Velkoz/Tahm Kench. With that target, only 1 of the other 9 champs was below the average. Deep/complex champions are cool but we want to make more of them in the average or accessible range.

Values we want a little more of:

  • Visual Clarity - Pushing the boundaries with new champs often comes at the cost of a lot of clutter. We’d like to be more responsible with screenspace/visuals.

  • Meaningful Constraints - This is in the little details of things. We think that the fact that Vayne’s tumble doesn’t let her go over walls creates a lot more interest than if it did. When faced with these types of micro decisions in the future we think that less will be more. Having these constraints lets the strengths that a champ has really carry.

Values we want a lot less of:

  • Burden on other players to participate - Some of the more unique experiences that we are delivering have been putting too much mindshare cost on the other players in the game. The Draven player is happy to play his axe catching game, but everyone else didn’t sign up for that. Another example is Skarner spires or Rek'sai tunnels -> these require a lot of time investment on other players to destroy them or keep them in check.

Values we want a little less of:

  • Mechanical Execution Mastery - 200 APM champs are fun for a certain type of hardcore player, but we would like them to be a small subset of our champ pool instead of the majority.

  • Unique experience - Over emphasis on this has led to what players often call “minigames.” We hope to make these a more thematic/seamless part of the champ experience going forward.

  • Mobility - We’ve seen the limits of this (league of mobility ala 2013) and even had phases of Ekko’s development where he went too far. In the end though, we have had a reasonably balanced approach that gives us a healthy mix of mobile and nonmobile champs. Though there are still exceptions where champions that don’t really need it end up with a dash, keep calling us out on this.

And that’s what I wanted to talk about this month! The main discussion points I have for us all are:

  • Do you agree/disagree with where we think we’re at?
  • Are there any values missing and worth discussing?
  • Are you excited for 2016 with this refreshed perspective and how we hope to apply it?

-Scruffy

391 Comments

Merxamers2/4/2016, 8:15:20 PM16 votes

I think somewhat related to "Counterplay", "Frustration" should be a factor. In particular, in my opinion, Ekko really has no weaknesses. Nearly all of his abilities are dashes/blinks/slows, and he has enough passive damage that 'tank-jungle Ekko' was and still is a thing. He's like Yasuo and Gnar, in a way; you have to rely on them to make a mistake, rather than actually outplaying him (except Yasuo is inherently fragile and gated by items, and Gnar has longer cds).

I also find Kindred to be especially frustrating, even though she's not quite as popular anymore. She's an ADC who is resistant to assassination, has access to a wall-hopping dash on short CD, and has infinitely scaling % health damage.

I guess my point is that i hope, in the future, you guys consider "how are opponents supposed to deal with this" rather than just "look at all this cool stuff they can do!"

On a separate note, i really do like Bard a lot, and hope to see more supports that have kits almost entirely based around utility. Also like Rek'sai, Vel'koz, Braum.

Zerglinator2/4/2016, 8:26:14 PM13 votes

I'd say the only ones I have real gripes with are Rek'Sai slightly, due to her Fury mechanic being underutilized and hard to notice, and a LOT of issues with Kalista.

She feels like she muscles in on other ADC fun points in better ways: Rend as a superior Twitch Expunge, Sentinel as a better Ashe Hawkshot, Martial Poise as an easier form of Vayne's Tumble--and while these aren't necessarily the MAIN points of those champs kits, and while all together it makes Kalista work differently, it still makes each of them feel less cool and individual. They still have their own identities and uses, but there's a part that feels like an inferior version of Kalista. And on that subject, Kalista herself doesn't have enough thematic ties in her kit it feels like. She was built up on her Black Spear and oathmaking, but the Black Spear bond is only present in her Ultimate (where it works) and as a Passive on her W which just adds more damage dominance; on top of that, W ALSO comes with an active which doesn't interact with her bonded ally at all. Kalista's my biggest pain point in the listed champ designs.

Apart from those two, the rest hit their points pretty well. Ekko could use a bit more flexibility and skill in his time manipulation, but it works decently enough.

TacoBrain2/4/2016, 10:36:44 PM13 votes
  • Do you agree/disagree with where we think we’re at? Yes and no. The post seems to hint that future champion releases won't be as unique as this year's. You talk about reducing **"Mechanical Execution Mastery" **and "Unique experience" but I feel like these should always remain goals of champion design. The former implies complexity. Complexity shouldn't be the end goal of design, but if it emerges as a consequence of interesting abilities then it's a good thing. Most players flock to champions that actively reward mastery and give a sense of progression. That's why few people enjoy Taric or Warwick, because their simplicity is oftentimes equivalent to a complete lack of interesting decisions in the game and a complete lack of a sense of progression. Progression is important, and champions like Azir/Gnar/Kalista for example all provide plenty of it by having a lot of flexibility and options. This can go wrong if the kit feels overwhelming to play against (due to the abundance of tools) but I feel like it's a line that must be walked. All 3 of these champs have been up for several balance changes because of their fundamental design but they're extremely fun to play as because the player gets a sense of improvement with each additional game with them. The post linked on the OP mentioned that MOBA players are all about mastery. Well then, don't take that from us. Simpler champions are fine, but we have about 130 champions and I feel like it'll take a long time before mechanically difficult champions become the norm.

The concept of **unique experience **is equally important, since it's a direct consequence of strategic identity. If each champion has a niche, they are therefore unique. Not every champion needs a minigame or a wacky mechanic, but stopping them would be almost a step back. These "minigames" however seemingly pointless are usually core on some champions (Bard's passive is amazing, both thematically and in gameplay as well, because it fits his theme and playstyle) but I'll admit some others aren't too fun. Skarner's passive (I know he's an updated champ, not a new one but felt it was important to mention) feels very much gimmicky for the sake of gimmicky, there's no mention of crystal spires in any iteration of his lore and while kidnapping people to his lair seems like appropriate to a scorpion, their locations and limited numbers simply mean they don't feel good. If he's behind, the enemy is able to deny him the spires, so he'll get no benefit from them. If he's ahead, he'll already be strong outside them, let alone within them. It doesn't feel good to play against him, and since he was nerfed after his release, he doesn't feel too fun to play as either. If you play it safe and remove these "Unique experiences" altogether, the champions that emerge will be much more likely to overlap with older ones or lack a distinctive strength/weakness profile, effectively meaning their strategic identity is non-existent unless they're broken.

Also, remember the finer things. Why does Tahm's W remove vision? It's already one of the most powerful abilities in the game, but removing vision within his belly feels completely unfun. Even if you don't die, it's annoying. I feel like Tahm is the single worst champion in the new releases. His kit on paper sounds good and fair but, in practice, his Q is annoying, his W is frustrating, his E feels very much like a slap in the face and his ultimate feels like it makes no sense in relation to the rest of his kit. More like it was tacked on. I'm not saying he's broken, the last couple of nerfs are keeping him in check, but just because a recent release isn't broken, that doesn't mean there aren't clear issues with it. Tahm seemed like a niche pick and what we've been getting instead is a champion that had almost pick-or-ban status for several months, that alone should have warranted heavier hits.

A more personal complaint, that may or may not be relevant from a design standpoint, is the grey health mechanic. I'm a big fan of new mechanics and, again, on paper it sounds very interesting. Tahm now has a choice between sustain or added survivability in prolonged fights, but the choice ends up non-existent in practice. If you get engaged or are low hp, pop your E. Otherwise, don't and you'll get some free health. I never found the sustain aspect unfair, albeit a few people did, but I would very much agree that the shield aspect doesn't feel too good. I'm not a designer, nor do I have the tools and knowledge that the team does, but I feel like Tahm could have benefited from a "Bond of Stone"-esque ability, where he'd take a percentage of damage instead of the ADC. It would serve a similar niche to his current E, in so far as duo lane trades go, but then it would potentially overlap with Braum's concept and would be difficult to implement in terms of his solo lane (and Mordekaiser's rework alone has shown the lack of support for "locking" a champion in a duo lane context). I actually like Tahm, I swear. He's currently 3rd place in terms of mastery points (1st being Bard and 2nd being Kindred, I also have mastery level 5 on Azir and Braum. It doesn't mean much, I know, but it should say something about how great I think recent releases have been).

  • Are there any values missing and worth discussing?

** Innovation **is a big one. Pushing the envelope in every direction is the best way to grow and learn. The recent VO's, skins, music themes and kits have all been extremely well-designed; I really feel like the uniqueness of new releases shouldn't be compromised any time soon. I hope you keep investing into all of these aspects. On a related note, I like having champions like Kindred that fulfill unconventional roles in different positions.

Another big one for me is Number Tuning. I understand internal tests only go so far but there's been a few cases where I'm personally interested in how Riot handles a few situations. For example, Kindred. I play a lot of Kindred. I quite like their design (a case could be made about duality but I'm a big fan of their kit). The big thing about them, however, is that they were presented as an ADC from the jungle that would have strong late game presence as befits an ADC, their ganks were meant to be possible but not overwhelmingly strong (because of the lack of CC). And yet, on their release, Devourer is nerfed on ranged champions. Their kit, with the current numbers, best fits an early game snowballing strategy that revolves around Armor Penetration since their scalings are pretty bad and their AA damage is lacking without their passive. I understand the passive acts as a mechanism to ensure they don't become too overwhelming but it feels almost wrong to play the one champion designed to be an ADC from the jungle, and instead of being a late-game auto attacking threat with limited CC and situationally powerful tools like Wolf's Frenzy and Lamb's Respite, they feel more like an early-mid game caster that needs to snowball or falls off massively. They're well-designed, I feel, but the way the numbers are tweaked, the way Devourer was nerfed, the passive alone seems almost counter-intuitive in their current iteration. Their Q/W gives amazing kiting and chasing allowing to proc the passive on-hit. Further autoattacking benefits are present with their E and yet most people would agree the Warrior build is far better than the Devourer one which doesn't feel consistent with their fantasy.

Number tuning is especially concerning when new/updated champions are released and are underwhelming at first. From memory Gnar/Bard/Tahm/Azir/Darius/Fiora/Poppy all got buffed shortly after their release. Gnar was mostly QoL but he became a staple pick in many games afterwards. Bard has been receiving buffs all year long. Tahm received them as far as Worlds before starting to get promptly nerfed. Azir went trough something similar, lots of bug fixes and a few buffs afterwards albeit he was never overwhelmingly strong in Solo Q. Darius/Fiora became competitive picks as well as pubstompers. Many currently feel like Poppy is OP. I feel like a bit of restraint should be necessary, especially in higher skill cap champs since the first week is rarely good for determining the true power level of a pick (unless it's that broken). Otherwise you run into situations like Gnar/Tahm/Darius who are far more reliable than they should have been in the first place. For 2016, even if a champion suffers a patch or two, I feel like a bit more time should be taken before relevant buffs are applied to harder champions.

  • Are you excited for 2016 with this refreshed perspective and how we hope to apply it?

I'm always looking forward to the new champ releases. You guys do an amazing job in every single one. I hope my feedback was worth something and my criticism was constructive and not overly ranty. Thanks for the post, I quite like these little insights in terms of design.

(Edited slightly. My point of view may not be universal since I personally love a lot of the recent "gimmicks" and mini-games, but I feel like it's important to mention it.)

Hellioning2/4/2016, 8:27:37 PM12 votes

I honestly want to see the champion update team's version of this.

I'd put 'Unique Experiences' in the 'lot less' category, personally. It might just be a case of oversaturation, but most of the recent new champs have minigames of some sort and it's kinda annoying. I'm talking about Kalista's passive (and W passive and R), Azir's soldiers, Rek'sai's tremor sense, Bard's chimes, Kindred's hunting, and Jhin's ammo system/weird autoattack scaling (and, if we're including champ updates, Graves' ammo system and GP's barrels.) They make things harder to learn for new players (new players who don't know what Jhin does are at a greater disadvantage then new players who don't know what, say, Ashe does.)

VDc0zCqe0w2/4/2016, 8:27:14 PM10 votes

I find that Kalista and Lucian don't fit the "strategic diversity" part to be honest.

Kalista can do basically everything except lategame DPS, but this is mostly not an issue since you don't even reach lategame most of the times nowadays, while Lucian after the mastery/ADC items rework is an abomination that has really no kind of drawback except having no utility: he has godlike early-midgame and now even really good lategame, godlike mobility, incredible AOE damage, huge burst etc...and you can clearly see this yourself since he's being spammed in every kind of elo and pro play, he's even getting banned sometimes.

I think that the other new champions listed were really well designed overall.

Cameran2/4/2016, 10:19:00 PM3 votes

What is your opinion of what I refer to as the "mental tax" when playing against certain champions/styles of play? You hit on it with Illaoi and the frustration associated with her vessel status, but more broadly, what about champions with low cost, highly spammable skills (this has to do with both frustration and meaningful constraints).

As an example, old Nidalee/current Zed versus the Thresh/Morg/Blitz. The former has basically resource-less poke on a low cd where a single (or a couple) hits of a skill that is difficult to dodge basically leads to a scenario where you are forced to play perfect or lose (whether that is a death or a fountain trip). The latter is a more fair variant, with a higher pay off (cc) but a correspondingly higher cost in terms of cd and resources. This has proven an issue for a number of recent champions/reworks (see: Illaoi, Gnar to some extent, Darius pre nerf Q), and I was curious if what development's current view was on being on the receiving side of the mental tax of avoiding/dodging/etc was.

ZaNJeTsU2/4/2016, 8:10:50 PM3 votes

you only have a problem with Azir and Bard, Azir need his passive back, or any possible buff to bring him back to the game, for Bard, I don't know, but he failed hard :(

Chairs2/4/2016, 8:14:25 PM2 votes

What do you think of Kalista's attack moving in terms of accomplishing its goal? I think it'd be a lot cooler if it more closely simulated attack moving (lower hop distance but more hops scaling with attackspeed).

EliteStonePanda2/4/2016, 8:28:46 PM2 votes

I am not sure if it's quite appropriate in this thread but has Riot's champ design crew ever thought about instead of creating more new champs just taking a break for a while and just completely working on and revamping older champs such as Urgot or Yorick

NitroPenguinn2/4/2016, 8:39:54 PM1 votes

Can you expand on what you mean by "burden on other players to participate"? Is draven's ax-catching game somehow detrimental to other players? Perhaps some more examples?

tp5c KissOfLife2/4/2016, 9:17:04 PM1 votes

So, earlier i talked about jhin and i feel like i didn't articulate myself properly when describing the small issue i had with him and his damage kit. Small issue it is however.

I'll try to articulate myself a bit better and if i make mistakes please feel free to let me know. So, it might sound premature to judge jhin based of playing him this little but i will give my two sense so far from playing him as much as i possibly can over the past few days, granted i probably shouldn't have played him in match up like zed etc but i took all that into account.

His w, is amazing...It's one of the most unique abilities in the game and is a lot less black and white once you look at the fine print. For example in lane, you throw out a w, hit minions...maybe you miss a champion, they think oh he missed me, but then...you crit a minion that you hit with your w because of it's passive, get move speed to get in range to land that 4 shot of yours. Deep game play, his traps are fun but i wouldn't say they are the things to decide a fight, they are more disruptive than anything else if ignored unless for some reason you decided to go ap. (which i did try an attack speed hybrid type, fun..but real hard).

his q gives him something to do between auto attacks and gives him that little bit of extra clear, his ult is fun. Nothing wrong with his moves (i mean i could nag about the traps being slow but i think they are fine).

Now here comes the issue for me, he has no attack speed...ok, that's fine and in place of attack speed you give him ad and move speed with more crit. That works great, but why a 2 second reload? Now most things have an apparent trade off but right now it looks like a guaranteed crit is the trade of to a 2 second reload. Couple of reasons why i don't believe this is a fair trade. 1: He has no attack speed...so adding a 2 second respite lowers his consistant damage. 2: the later the game goess the less meaning the guaranteed crit on the forth shot becomes as you build crit chance but on ther latter the more important 2 seconds becomes. ** 3:** if you don't build crit in some odd attempt to take advantage of this forth shot crit you sacrifice move speed (is it me or does he have crazy low base move speed). He has no attack speed so you'd think that makes sense but his other passive wants him to build crit making his reload+crit have less meaning the more you build according to his crit passive movespeed, and less meaning the further the game goes. SO my question is, is there something i'm missing to justify this 2 second reload window? It sure doesn't feel that way to me. The trade off is very different to the trade off graves makes where it is very clear what the reload is in trade with, further more it doesn't necessary devalue as the game goes on.