Can't Riot just make 2 different patches for pro play and regular play?

Swarovsko·Jul 25, 2017·9 votes·395 views

That's an actual question not a suggestion. Lots of people were complaining about Ekko and his buffs since he was in a good spot (at least in regular play) and yet Riot buffed him anyway for pro play, so why can't they just make separate patches for both regular and pro players?

6 Comments

TryMucinexJul 25, 20172 votes

I think this answer from Ask Riot helps. I don't know.

"Since it is so difficult to balance for play from Bronze to the pro level, why not have two separate patches, one for diamond+ and one for those below diamond?"

We feel like it's really important to the LoL experience that the pros are playing the same game as everyone else. There are a few reasons for this:

For one, you can enjoy esports on a lot of different levels, but some really engaged viewers understand all of the nuance about item builds and counter picks because they know those details from League. Once you start tuning the game with two different sets of numbers, it's harder to appreciate the decisions the pros are making. It might even be hard to tell if that amazing play was really that hard to pull off or not.
Second, it's really cool to see a pro pick a champion that you love or know really well. Maybe it's all psychological, but you lose some of that if they are playing a different game from you. The reasons they pick Gnar might be totally different and not even applicable to the reasons you pick Gnar.
Third, it's super common during a discussion about a pro game for someone to say "Man, I really want to go play League right now." We risk losing some of that feeling if the pros are playing on a different patch. “Just remember, turrets are more powerful on live than in Worlds, and Vlad hasn’t been nerfed yet, and... .” You get the idea.
Finally, a lot of players look to the pros when they are trying to learn a new champion or strategy or just to get better in their own game. You'd lose some of that if say the pro champs need more hits to kill a jungle mob, or have less MR even after they've finished the same item build.

We’ve been trying to come up with more outside-the-box solutions to solve pro balance and diversity. To use an example from basketball, the three-point line is farther from the basket in pro games than it is in college games. That’s a somewhat subtle difference that has a meaningful impact, but doesn’t change the viewing experience enormously. (I’m admittedly not much of a basketball fan, so maybe I’m totally wrong on that!) I'm not sure what the SR version of a three-point line would be. Longer range towers? Weaker towers? Less gold from minions? Those all might have really unpredictable effects. My fear is that if we start implementing pro-only solutions, that it leads to a place where we have two versions of Gangplank with different damage coefficients and maybe even different rules about how his barrels work. On top of violating all of the four points I raised above, it also creates that many more opportunities to introduce bugs to the game. I know your questions also specifically mentioned Diamond+, which doesn’t have all of the viewing ramification of affecting pro games, but point 4 still applies where you have to relearn part of the game as your rank goes up or down, and it might lead to the profusion of different Gangplanks to an even greater degree. Believe me, as a designer, it sometimes seems like a really attractive solution. We could make Yi viable for Worlds without making him stomp Bronze even more! We could make Azir playable by mere mortals! But I think that's the lazy designer in me talking. At the end of the day, I think the cost to League wouldn't be worth it.

GayFluffyUnicornJul 26, 20172 votes

Sounds all good and fine but doesn't change the fact that riot fucks over soloQ by artificially creating more "diversity" in pro play. Some champs are just not fit for an organized team environment and believe me if yi would be made viable for proplay he wouldn't just stomp bronze and that's the problem i have with this obscene buffs to someone like gnar and now sivir. Ekko is already a failed design and cancer to this game he really doesn't need a buff and before people come up with "LUL A SMALL CD CHANGE WONT BREAK HIM"... remember kassa? Exactly.

SwarovskoJul 26, 20171 votes

Thanks for this