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Class descriptions should be adjusted to better describe the goal of champs in the class

Spice POWAH·1/26/2018, 2:39:04 AM·2 votes·210 views

I'm not the best at boards formatting, so bear with me here

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking about game systems about LoL both because it's fun to imagine how to improve things and I think it's good practice for game dev. If you're reading this, remember that my ideas probably aren't perfect and obviously haven't been tested, but I think they're at least good enough to be worth a boards post. So imma be going through a bunch of different things and how I'd improve them, maybe fix some issues. Who knows, there might be a few good ideas in here...

I think one part of an issue is that some champions are bunched up with other champoins that do different things, when they should be in the same group (especially marksmen class). I don't mean something like Singed being in a "unique playstyle" group, cuz I think he belongs there. I mean Lucian, Vayne and ashe all being grouped up as marksmen when they have wildly different playstyles. Sure, they all focus on autoattacks, but do so differently. Lucian can't fight as well without his abilities, Vayne is pretty short range for an adc, and Ashe has utility, but immobility. Therefore, they should be in different groups, so i'm going to say what the playstyle groups should be to me for the classes.

#Skirmishers This class likes to run around and kill stuff. They also like right-clicking, whether through attack speed, AA resets/buffs or attacks that function similarly to autos. Typically, they have at least one mobility ability and high movement speed, but are usually(but not always) better at engaging than escaping.

Examples: Yasuo Vayne MasterYi Draven

These champions are mostly the hypermobile AA-focused champions, relying on their speed & reflexes to stay alive. They may have a way to avoid death, but not much defense. Tends to go with the 1v9 power fantasy.

#Marksmen This class dreams of being a walking fountain turret. Comprised of immobile ranged AA champs, they want to take out their enemy uninterrupted by relying on their team to enable them. Rarely has mobility as anything but a kill trigger. Sticks with their friends (or their friends stick with them)

Examples: Ashe KogMaw Xayah Jinx

Time to play "Protect the Kog"! These champions, unless so fed they can literally afk penta, NEED their team to help them. This is not a bad thing- it's a team game, after all. While they're not useless on their own, being in a 1v1 is very dangerous due to a lack of defensive options.

#ADCasters (Spellblades) This class is for those that tread the line between skirmishers and mages. Because they rely on their abilities as much as their auto attacks, they tend to get many options. They can usually move quickly and hit hard, but without their abilities they're more or less useless. Tends to be mobile or, at least, safe.

Examples: Jhin Ezreal Lucian Riven

It's worth emphasizing that the Spellblades are pretty much terrible without their abilities but still rely on autos, not much else to say here other than "squishy"

Those were the classes that I think needed different categorization the most. There are some more I think need distinguishing: Mage classes.

#APCarries This class is similar to the typical ADC, in a way. Their goal is magic damage over time, usually by spamming the same ability over and over, but the point is that they take a bit of time to kill a target. Fortunately, their short-ish cooldowns means that they can change targets easily, if need be. Since they're mana-gated, they have a little more leeway in how much they can run.

Examples: Azir Cassiopeia Ryze AurelionSol

These are mages that are there to be the magic equivalent of what marksmen are considered now. Needs some time & gold to scale; would rather play the "get rich slow" scheme like the Marksmen as described above probably want. Still needs teamwork though.

#Battlemages This class isn't afraid to get close to or jump into the fight, though they aren't assassins. The reason for their bravery is mostly some way to not die or can count on their team to follow up on their efforts. Either that or they're overly confident of their abilities. Regardless, they can deal damage to a lot of people at once if they play their cards right, but they need to get pretty close to danger.

Examples: Ahri Vladimir Fiddlesticks Viktor

This is a category that can be pretty wide, so I'd seperate this into 2 types: battlemages who survive through shields, tankiness or healing (ekko, vlad...) and battlemages who survive through kiting (ahri, karthus...).

#Control Mages This class wants to make sure the fight goes how they want to. When their opponents try to escape, they will block their path. Make absolutely sure their damage gets hit by that skillshot. Keep them locked down before they become an issue. Be a threat by merely existing.

Examples:Anivia Malzahar Zyra Taliyah

Tries to keep as much of the battlefield "owned" by their team as possible. Can do this with threatening abilities or CC. Usually both.

#Artillery This class would rather stay in the back and take out their targets from as far away as possible. Also tend to need their combos to kill stuff, but also have crowd control to maintain their distance. Has some controlling elements, sometimes.

Examples:Xerath Lux Ziggs Velkoz

A pretty narrow category, but a neccessary one. They're not control mages despite having similar elements- Rather than keeping the battlefield under control, they try to force the enemy away by either killing them or chunking away their health, forcing them to retreat. Are they assassins? No, they don't need to get close. Are they burst mages? Maybe, but with a specialty of being long-range. Basically, different gameplay goals means it needs a different category.

Anyway, this post got longer than I thought it would. This should be it though- I don't have any issues with classifications for tanks, juggernauts and such. Mostly the classification of... well, the stuff mentioned in this post. If it isn't mentioned, I don't have an issue with it. Again, the point of this is to say that marksmen should be put in other classes when necessary because of playstyle similarities, but then I went on about other classes. Also might delete the support-mage section because I basically just described it without adding anything... not sure. If people find this interesting though I'll make another post about other stuff cuz this one got long. If not, I'll probably make it anyway.

TLDR If you're interested in a specific class, look for the bold print. If you don't find it I probably think it's fine unless I missed something.

edit: deleted a section for being mostly irrelevant

2 Comments

TehNACHO1/26/2018, 3:46:27 AM2 votes

One of the issues I have with some of your classifications is that they don't capture what role I want to pick a given champion for. Let me point out a few examples:

  • Huge lost opportunity to call out Utility Carries like Ashe, Sivir, Jhin, Varus, and Kalista.
  • I would never pick Jhin for similar reasons to picking Ezreal to similar reasons to playing Riven. The Ezreal Lucian dynamic is fine, they both sit in similar niches as is where Lucian affords more offense to Ezreal's kiting potential. However, neither of these champions relate to Jhin in any way other than their Marksman traits. Which in turn has nothing to do with Riven, who isn't a Marksman at all.
  • I have no clue where you're drawing the line between AP Carries and Battlemages. Is it over gold earned? Because Ryze and Cass, and Aurelion all don't even make that much gold over the course of the game. Is it over relative bulkiness and survivability? Depending on the meta (or Rework in Ryze's case), Cass and Ryze get very bulky as their mana based builds invite defensive options. And what the heck is Viktor doing in this mix? Shouldn't he be in a Burst Mage classification, since his job is that of bursting squishies down? From what I can see, you might as well merge both of these classes since they both effectively do the same job, Magic Damage over time.
  • Support-Mage is redundant as fuck

I can't help but feel like, especially with the Skirmisher/Marksman/Spellblade sections, you're focusing too hard on the inputs and not enough on the outcomes. I would never pick Ashe for the same reason as I would pick Kog'Maw even though the vast majority of their input, how I play them as right clicking immobile Marksmen, is largely the same, so putting them in the same category seems odd. In this vein, Riven shouldn't be anywhere near, say Varus (who'd I assume falls into the Spellblade section). Riven's role is that of a hypermobile duelist, and contrary to your apparent evaluation also happens to be extremely reliant on her auto attacks so she should be a Skirmisher no matter how you spin it. And if you do want to go with the input half of the argument than the output, then Kite Mages should definitely be a separate identification from Battlemages because Ahri in the same category as Vladimir is odd at best and dumb at worst.