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Viable character pools and the glaring difference between league and dota.

MetalGearTeemu·8/5/2016, 9:21:42 PM·1 votes·720 views

With TI6 underway, I've been caught up somewhat in my offices hype over the event ( we work in the industry, so its a big topic. ) and I'm blown away by the sheer volume of heroes which have been picked in the tournament. The group stage of the event isn't even over, and over 100 different heroes have been picked, and almost 100 unique heros have been banned.

This is something thats always been a thing that bothers me about league, and Dota seems to have equal numbers of common cores, and unique game altering late picks like Ursa, Omniknight, and Pudge which completely change the complexion of a game when picked up late. Do you guys honestly think that league can reach a point where these kind of selection statistics is possible?

i do not. But its not a question of balance, its a question of design philosophy. Skill hemognization, and certainly3 design ethic ensures characters step all over each other in terms of "What this character brings to a lineup." But I have no clue how this could ever be remedied in our current game.

Whats everyone's thoughts on this? [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

3 Comments

TurquoiseYoshi8/6/2016, 1:37:21 AM1 votes

From what I understand about Dota, the items are much more powerful and impactful than League's. Whether that's true or not, I don't know (because I don't play/follow Dota), but that would definitely open up more character choices, since you could just get an item to fill a niche, rather than an entire champion.

Kinjishi8/6/2016, 2:04:58 AM1 votes

"Do you guys honestly think that league can reach a point where these kind of selection statistics is possible?" No. In Worlds for Seasons 1-5, they haven't even crossed the 80 champ threshold yet (I believe). Granted the number of champs has grown every season, but it doesn't really get as high as 100 because some champs are nerfed into the ground or buffed into the sky - so teams stay away from or always lean towards certain ones.

Glaedr8/7/2016, 2:17:17 AM1 votes

Generally in League we get all the crazy picks that players have been hiding during international tournaments. For example during Season 3 Worlds we had 64/116 champions show up. For any given meta there is obviously always going to be champions best suited for that meta so seeing 55% of the champions show up at the largest event of the year is honestly pretty impressive to me. I really don't know much about DOTA since I don't play it, but from what I heard the game gets very very few balance patches, so when players are given months to explore a single patch, it just makes sense people can come out with more diverse picks and team compositions to work with.

Now I don't expect League to change its core gameplay mechanics or change patching schedules to reach the level of DOTA in terms of diversity, but they are clearly trying to improve with the things champions bring to the table. Whenever Riot does a rework on a champion now, they always bring up "what makes this champion different?" and if they keep going at everything with that mindset, maybe we will reach that point where we can see 70-80% of the champion pool at a major tournament.