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Should LoL adopt the "Perk" system that HotS has? Pros and Cons

Yoella·4/19/2015, 10:45:15 PM·9 votes·1,934 views

First of all I'll explain what the "Perk" system is. The Perk system in Heroes of the Storm is a set of options sometimes with both positive and negative effects that modify your Hero's abilities or stats (and sometimes add new effects too). Every so many levels your Hero is allowed to choose one of several Perks that are unique to each level. I'll explain more on this further down with an example.

Perks would allow a more intimate level of customization on each champion, and because each set of perks is tailored to each champion one can be modified without affecting other champions. An example in recent history of something that would've greatly benefited from the Perk system is the Devourer enchantment. When the Devourer enchantment was first released it made Warwick incredibly overpowered, along with a few other champions who relied on attack speed, or multiple fast hits. As a result of this, in the current system, the Devourer ITEM got nerfed significantly, as did Warwick.

This resulted in the Devourer enchantment becoming useless. With how things are now that result could not have been avoided. But what if we had a Perk system in place? Imagine, Devourer would stay in it's post-nerf state but certain jungler champions who would not be able to abuse it would have a perk at an early level to increase Devourer damage by a certain amount. Suddenly Devourer becomes viable again, while at the same time it cannot be abused.

In another theoretical example, let's use Blitzcrank in his current form with the self slow. Let's say Blitzcrank gets his first perk at level 3. These would be the Tier 1 perks, and he could only choose one of them. They would be as follows:

  1. Lower cost of Q (grab)
  2. Lower CD of Q (grab)
  3. Passive shield takes into account 5% more mana
  4. W now only slows him for .5 seconds instead on 1.5

A Blitzcrank who wants to spam his grab as often as possible would choose option 2. One who wants to conserve mana for whatever reason (that grab is pricey) would grab option 1. A Blitzcrank looking to be tanky would choose option 3, and one who wants to be exceptionally mobile would choose option 4. However, when he reaches level 8 and gets his Tier 2 Perk, they will be from a different selection, so he cannot have both "Lower Q CD" and "Lower Q Cost" at the same time.

I have no doubt that this would take considerable resources and effort to implement, but I sincerely believe that it's one of the things League needs most of all. Not to mention it would make balance significantly easier down the line. Riot would be free to nerf/buff certain aspects of champions or their interactions with items WITHOUT affecting everyone else who uses those items or those playstyles. Not to mention builds would be a lot more in-depth. The only real downside to this is the time it would take to implement.

25 Comments

Major Sparkles4/19/2015, 11:58:10 PM6 votes

Could be interesting but sounds like it would require a massive overhaul of the existing systems. I'm not saying it isn't possible but it makes me question whether Riot is willing to put the resources into a project like this.

Errastas4/19/2015, 11:22:30 PM3 votes

That is because there are no item in HoTS.

Lord Dusteon4/19/2015, 11:03:21 PM3 votes

I think that would run into the same problem Kha's evolutions have that one or two are clearly the best to get everytime. For the Blitzcrank example, the lower Q cd is the best to get almost everytime, as that makes his gamechanging ability up more; while you COULD theoretically get the other 3, they are all outclassed by the lower cd (lower cost is only useful first 10 or so minutes, passive shielding more is meh compared to getting even more grabs, and W having less slow time is meh compared to just grabbing more). While the other effects could be buffed, you'd then run into the same problem (I can get lower cd on my grab...or have basically no cost on them! Early game grab spam for massive leads). You'd need to make every single effect unique and offer more than just a straight numbers buff.

Which could reasonably happen, though I'm concerned about the burden of knowledge you would have then. You'd need to either A) have what perks everyone took visible before the game starts and tell the player what each chosen perk does, or B) ignore that and hope your playerbase is fine with learning what every single champions perk is and does. And B isn't very fun to play as or against, as you would be forced to play safe and find out what perks they had before you could try anything.

UberAffe4/19/2015, 10:52:21 PM2 votes

Thats actually alot like how kha'zix's evolve worked I forget what levels he gets them at but at certain levels he gets an extra evolve ability that fundamentally changes an aspect of one of his abilities, although in one of his last changes they made it so that he gets all of them at some point.

Teridax684/19/2015, 11:59:48 PM1 votes

I like the idea of having more personalized bonuses, which is something both runes and masteries fail to deliver on (they're just there for extra stats), but as Lord Dusteon mentioned below, there's also a heavy risk only one perk would end up being picked over its competitors, no matter how much fine-tuning goes into adjusting the system. Another potential problem is the burden of knowledge this imposes on the player: while runes and masteries already do that to a large degree, at least they tend to be pretty uniform. Having to remember all of a champion's perks and how they change gameplay, as well as keep track of which perks a player is using, might be a bit too much to memorize.

Earl Eulrich4/20/2015, 12:19:48 AM1 votes

If they didn´t start again from zero after the alpha it´s save to say that wahtever they do they should not try and take anything from Hots (ok except, sadly enough, it´s save to say that currently the story of Hots is still better than LoLs after the retcon).

Desiderium4/19/2015, 11:05:07 PM1 votes

As long as you can see them, and they don't provide gamebreaking alterations, I don't see what's wrong with having customizable mini-passives. But their downsides have to go. Everything about customizing your champion is supposed to help them in all ways, not hinder them in any. Also, I don't think they should fine-tune certain passives for certain champions (like your 5% mana barrier point) because that would be a huge burden of knowledge, as well as a massive amount of work, considering the fact that this is never going to happen in the first place anyway. Stick to things like slightly increased damage, or slightly increased health regen, etc. Just minor little mini-passives. Up to a maximum of like, 3.

Edit: Misread your mana barrier thing, but my point still stands.

Sukishoo4/19/2015, 11:49:07 PM1 votes

Yeah, that's because you don't build items or even level your abilities in HoTS. You just level up and gain traits every so often to help out because of the lack of items and skill leveling.

Truly Prideful4/19/2015, 11:51:42 PM1 votes

The perks are your items in HotS. I think it would be too dangerous to have them interacting with items in this game. Especially percentage damage increases and the like.