@Riot Remember When You Said This? Edition #3 -- Diverse Gameplay
#Remember when you said:
On Champion Role Diversity
"Quote: What are your thoughts on pigeon holing a champion to a certain role vs letting them be able to go multiple places. Alistar is a good recent example of this, back in I think season 2 he was buffed up so that he could be a jungler as well as a support but found his ganking power to be super strong so he was nerfed so that he was a much less appealing choice as a jungler. Now he's gotten some buffs to be a better support, and even more nerfs to be less of a jungler."
Ghostcrawler: All things being equal, champions that can fill multiple roles are cool. There are two big footnotes to this. First, we haven't always been great at supporting novel use of champions. In the past, if an AD Marksman started to get played as an AP, we'd sometimes stomp it out quickly because it was unintended without really establishing if the play pattern was healthy (e.g. did it have sufficient team play and counterplay) and if players would be able to come up with strategies to counter that play. We are trying to be less reactionary to those opportunities. Second however, game health still is a thing we have for which we have to be mindful. Jungle Alistar tends to be pretty frustrating for the other team, so it's not something we're likely to support without some fundamental changes to his abilities. Support Annie, Mid Lulu, AP Ez are champion roles we have no fundamental issue with, as long as they don't eclipse the champion's performance in all other roles.
On Champion Diversity / Homogenization
"Quote I gotta say, while I know that Riot members always have their own opinions and sometimes see far less than eye to eye, over here the other red said they saw trundle as a tank. Either way, if he was to be buffed, I'd love to see his pillar be more useful, right now its kinda just like--"here have a random slow zone". I'd like it to have an AS slow with it. or just make everything more crucial when on his frozen domain. Maybe his ult also slows while both are on it, or his pillar slow zone is bigger on the domain, or his q is brief stun instead of slow while on it. something more along those lines."
RiotRepertoir: I think this is ok, and in some ways a good thing. Talking about general class frameworks like Juggernaut or Tank is useful but we aren't trying to homogenize our characters into cookie cutter like buckets. So in this case Trundle brings a mix of Juggernaut and Tank skills so he's somewhere in the grey space between those two clasees. IMO that's a good thing and these type of hybrid champs are what keep the league roster diverse."
On Off-build/Itemization Diversity
"Quote What do you think of the current item system overall and how it can lead to homogenization among champions? Specifically, how do you feel about the fact that tank items make all characters equally tanky, leading to balance problems like tank Ekko, tank Fizz and recently, tank Yasuo? [. . .]"
Ghostcrawler: The fundamental problem with the item system, and this is mostly my opinion so the team might disagree, is that it is trying to do two competing things. First, it wants to reward you for gold earned. Buying items is the main way your champ gets more powerful as a result of your playing well (champ leveling is the other significant way). So if we had an item system where it was easy to make mistakes and purchase items that didn't really make you stronger, then the item system fails on that axis. The other axis is that the item system wants to let you customize your character, and that includes trying out weird builds. If I could just snap my fingers and make it all work, then the best result would be that each champion has multiple build paths with interesting decisions along the way, but without a real risk of making such bad choices that earning gold doesn't help you win. That is hard to deliver on in practice.
On Champion Role Diversity
"Quote Having flexibility in the game - where champs can pick different roles and lanes - keeps it interesting. We need more of that, not less. The issue is balance. Those champs have to be balanced for both solo lanes and duo lanes. IMO, this can be solved by designing all champs to be able to scale with gold, and then buffing the gold of the support role."
Ghostcrawler: This is actually the direction we'd prefer to go. Now not every champion will be able to fill multiple roles (though Morgana feels close at times :) ), but** we'd like to see players try more exploration of these sorts of things and not feel wrist-slapped by us when they do**. Historically we feel we've been a little over-reactive in this regard -- as soon as someone steps out of "their lane" or tries something different than "their build," we try to swoop in and quickly make changes. It keeps the game balanced (maybe...), but it's boring.
#So are you ever going to address the fact that you (Riot) continually dumpster 99% of all viable off-meta playstyles and off-build itemizations in favor of pigeon-holing champions into linear, binary gameplay?
E.g. Tank/Bruiser Fizz -- Instead of finding a way to make 
's off-build viable in a way that is non-oppressive, you completely gut the off-build(s) entirely and indirectly nerf AP Mage Assassin, too. Essentially forcing all Fizz players to either "play mid or gtfo" (because top lane is dominated by bruisers/fighters that absolutely wreck AP squishies).
Instead maybe you could have, oh I don't know, done something like removing Fizz' damage to champions on his E and doubling it for minions as solely a waveclearing/escape utility ability. Then you would have power to move elsewhere on his kit, and allowing all variations of Fizz builds to survive/thrive, whilst keeping him in line with counter-play and checking his oppressive gameplay.
##Now with these further re-classifications, you just continue to cement the meta and force players to play champions in only one very, specific way with one very, specific optimal build, because everything else is complete trash due to nerfs/gutting.
Why even bother having hybrid champions anyways? Why even bother stating to the community that you "suport off-meta builds and playstyles", and that you want the community to be able to experiment with their champions and itemization, when all you do year after year, is destroy anything that's more viable and stronger for a champion's default setup than what you originally intended?
##Just flat out say that you only want champions to be built a certain way and played a certain way, and damn anything else that is remotely viable.
There's a difference between "Oh this champion with these items is too oppressive and unhealthy, let's try to find a way to tone it down while letting players still enjoy the different build/playstyle"; versus "Oh this champion with these items is too oppressive and unhealthy, let's completely gut anything that isn't exactly what we want".
You created champions like Fizz, Katarina, Yasuo, Camille, etc; take ownership of the fact you made mobility creep and oppressive champion kits far too powerful, and now instead of reworking them in a sane and logical way, you simply destroy their off-builds, and further narrow them (and other) champions' viability in different roles/builds/lanes -- other than one single, very binary style of gameplay with them.
-
Remember
Malzahar Jungle, Mid, Top? Yea, he's complete trash because you wouldn't/couldn't find a way to balance him properly when he took over support lane. -
Remember
Alistar Top, Jungle? Yea, he's literally been re-worked completely into a support champion only, instead of letting him live top or jungle in a non-oppressive manner, you changed his entire kit to revolve around being a "CC Bot". -
Remember
Hecarim Top, Mid? Yea, he's just a Jungler now, everything else is dumpstered. You kept his AP scaling(s) for what reason, exactly? -
Remember
Jungle? Yea I don't know either, he was semi-viable as a jungler and you got rid of that capability for him, too (indirectly). -
Remember
Top, Jungle? You know, his original role(s)? Yea, that's complete shit now thanks to his massive nerf after nerf because "omgz LCS 2 OP" -- but hey fuck the champion and fuck the community right? Turn him into another "CC Bot" for support lane like Alistar. He can't survive at all in top, and junglers eat him alive with his shit clearing now thanks to all his E nerfs. -
Remember
Top, Supp? No? You just killed them both (and practically his entire viability with that extremely shit tier 60% slow active). Go take a look at your stats; he was supposed to get "love taps" before a major rework could be done for him -- instead you completely changed his identity. He's not playable as a tank, he's barely playable as a bruiser thanks to the dumb fucking idea of a 60 FUCKING PERCENT SLOW on a champion that was DESIGNED TO GO FAST. At the very least, lower the slow to something manageable like 30%, or fucking roll back the changes and try again.
I could go on with the list, but I'm getting angrier and angrier at the sheer level of incompetent decision making some of you at Riot have, when it comes to reworking or "balancing" existing champions.
##It's like you don't even bother to really think some of these changes through and just throw shit out there into the community -- when some of these nerfs/guttings/reworks are so completely, blatantly, obviously not healthy for the champion in one direction or another (either too strong or complete shit) -- it blows my mind.
I mean, I could come up with at least 10 different ideas for any single champion's rework or balance changes and I don't even fucking know a single god damned thing about game designl; but I have my brain, I have logic, I have common sense, and more importantly, I have an understanding of not only what the champion's core identity is, but also an understanding of how their identities shift and change within the community on a regular basis.
You keep forcing everyone's hands to play a certain way, build a certain way, even after players have expressly shown you time and again through creative off-builds and playstyles "hey Riot, we want the fucking freedom to play this champion a different fucking way", so maybe... you know... do better at enabling that creativity and freedom of play instead of smothering it over and over.
Cause honestly, you've mentioned in the past you want to try and enable more diverse playstyles and builds, but so far you're doing a piss poor job at it; inversely, you're doing a fantastic job of making League a very binary, static and one-dimensional game with cookie cutter builds and champions that might as well just have generic names like "Mobile Burst Assassin" and "Physically Imposing but Weak Bruiser Person who Has Crowd Control".
And lastly my favorite: "Champion Whose Entire Viability/Existence Revolves Around Other Champions But Sucks In Solo Roles".
