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Riot: Please heed the "Butterfly Effect"

TAOxEaglex·1/28/2015, 6:10:38 PM·2 votes·634 views

"Butterfly Effect - The sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state ... can result in large differences in a later state."

Stop throwing the kitchen sink at champions when deciding to nerf/buff/do any changes on them. The most efficient way to balance the game is make slight changes, evaluate results, rinse, and repeat. The variance between champs getting bounced around from unusable -> OP -> balanced -> unusable is absurd.

For example, Tristana is getting reworked with a new E. Cool. We should introduce this new ability then evaluate how she stands among her ADC peers then tweak accordingly. Ez game right? Nope.

Riot introduces new E. Then nerfs attack speed. And attack range. And armor. And health. And scaling.

Riot decides Fizz is too OP. They nerf his Q base damage. And Q scaling. Remove W grievous wounds. Nerf W scaling. Nerf W passive. Buff Ult.

Riot reminds me of when I used to play my little sister in Mario Kart. The second she would slightly drift left, she would smash the wheel to the right, then as she careened into the right wall, she would smash the wheel to the left, precariously zig-zagging down what is a nice, straight road.

I don't know how Fizz and Tris are going to turn out in terms of being OP or garbage or whatever. That's not the point.

The point is: Heed the "Butterfly Effect"

1 Comments

ProfDrDeath1/28/2015, 7:16:48 PM1 votes

Riot does pay attention to that effect - but mostly when straight-up nerfing champions, like for example Zed in this patch. There could've easily been more nerfs to the ninja, but Riot deliberately decided to only target his AS for now, as that will negatively affect his synergy with both BotRK and Youmuu's.

However, for things like Tristana and Fizz, the principle idea is not to straight-up nerf them, but rather to redistribute their power: Fizz had his Q's damage reduced massively, along with swapping parts of the effect of his W's passive and active on-hit (active now deals bonus damage based on missing HP, has not AP ratio - passive AP ratio increased, but lost missing HP scaling -> DoT will be less powerful, but activating W will help last-hitting). The power gained by that was shifted to the damage amplification in the ult - which makes him less of a WQ eraser and more dependant on successfully landing the Shark, as well as using E to actually do damage.

Tristana is another story, too. She lost some range, some AS/level, a bit of HP at level 1 and the Grievous Wounds/DoT. However, for that, she gained a bit of base AD and a truly unique E effect - a point&click nuke that requires some further commitment to reach full effect, but that is castable on towers (making hiding under them dangerous) and has AD scaling. I cannot stress this last point enough. Giving Tristana an AD scaling ability actually changes her whole approach to the game, as it tremendously helps bridging her gaping mid-game hole. Yes, she loses some of her late-game strength, but she'll still be the safest hypercarry of them all, due to her still high enough range, her resetting Rocket Jump and the AoE peel potential of Buster Shot.

Could these changes result in a mistuning of the respective champion? Possibly. Or, rather, quite likely. But the kinds of power redistributions change how the champion works on a fundamental level, something which cannot be achieved by simple buffs and nerfs alone.