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@Maple Nectar: Boots (long response)

InTheory··8 votes·1,024 views

#Another InTheory Thread and today it's all about boots!

I originally intended to take some more time for this, but recently Maple Nectar asked for our thoughts on boots if we were to redesign them. So as long as the topic might be hot at Riot HQ, I hurried and visualized my ideas to bring them to your attention. Please note: You can't simply remove boots or change their MS values too hard because basically all sorts of abilities, skillshots and area of effects are balanced around everyone running around with boots (except snake lady).

DISCLAIMER: Do not focus on numbers. Really - don't do it. This thread is not about balance of numbers, it is about game design.

I LIKE SYSTEMATICAL CONSISTENCY

The current boots as closed system include the following three problems:

  • Some versions have the majority of their power budget pumped into their stats (e.g. berserker greaves) while others have put it into their passives (e.g. Ninja Tabis).
  • Tend to be hard to balance around the meta. Every pair of boots have been a dominant meta choice at some point without them being changed previously. Swifties, Mercuries and Tabis have all had their spotlight of "being OP" at least if you believe boards (never do that btw).
  • Boots are very slot inefficient and only marksmen really have an option to exchange them for another Zeal item.

My ideas are based around the idea that boots have 3-4 elemental aspects that are:

  • Movement Speed
  • Secondary stats
  • Passive effects
  • Active effects

I ended up with two similar boot systems and try to aim at the following goals:

  • balance of their power budget in terms of the 4 elemental aspects along all boot options (see above).
  • higher slot efficiency by putting more power into them (of course for a higher price).
  • more stages of investment especially due to higher prices. Opt into the stages when needing the power of that stage.
  • more customization options so one can really use what fits best.
  • make boots exciting items as long as one is forced to buy a pair (except snake lady).

#First approach Introducing double enchantments

One of the first changes is, that you can upgrade to tier 2 boots for the increased movement speed without the need to opt into stats first. These boots are not about collecting high amount of secondary stats - so they should not be a requirement if you just want to have the movement speed. Therefore (spoiler) the following upgrades will not increase the secondary stats too much. This means: You can go for tier 2 (T2) boots for the MS and if you want the secondary stats, you are fine with the respective component.

https://imgur.com/My3LqSl https://imgur.com/k8cevd5

In my first version of boots rework you are still able to upgrade boots by combining them with one basic tier 1 component. I want to point out here, that some options are not available anymore but might appear (spoiler) on the later stage with the reintroduction of enchantments. Currently Magic Penetration is replaced by flat AP for the sake of consistency, AD boots is introduced and CDR boots are removed for the same reason. The stats you gain after upgrading them are woth about 500 gold - making them more consistent independent on what you want to opt into (flexibility).

https://imgur.com/p7th2cn https://imgur.com/aVStVse https://imgur.com/ZSXHYAo https://imgur.com/gogamPN https://imgur.com/PjzBift https://imgur.com/4rOplEE

Excursus: In a systematically build moba game, a stat like Penetration would be the option for one of two scenarios: 1) having high base values of damage and low scaling because penetration also effects base damage values and 2) against low MR targets aka for AP assassins. Sadly, AP itemization didn't dare to change a flawed system - didn't change a single thing about AP assassins playing with the same items than standard mages - leaving penetration boots mandatory for every magic damage carry. This is a flaw imo and I can't fix that in my current work. Yet I design my system around the optimal design as I explained.

After upgrading boots to versions that you know (visually), you can enchant them to gain these passive effects. Here you find old enchantment options (slightly changed), current boot passives (slightly changed) and reintroduced secondary stats as passive effects. It is also intended to further upgrade these boot options with active effects that you can find in the second part below.

https://imgur.com/hJb7fpG https://imgur.com/cHRjN6l https://imgur.com/TmQjXlw https://imgur.com/1sC39fU https://imgur.com/DoCnkjG https://imgur.com/0x9maC8 https://imgur.com/xJ7MSnX

This approach is very linear in what you buy and upgrade and it fits more the design system of items in league of legends. The next one is a little more abstract but worth talking about.

#Second approach Slots mechanic

The second system plays more with the idea of picking up what you need and want, giving players options for decision making and react faster to their needs without rushing a 2.5k gold item. Even though the following process is visualized (spoiler) from left to right, it is intended that you can fill the slots in whatever order you want.

FLAW: The following images contain flaws because they were transfered from those from the first system. The intention here is that You only pay the gold for one component and you only get the stats from that component. There is no increase of stats and no combination cost

https://imgur.com/uXQIXUW https://imgur.com/Hbx6vV1 https://imgur.com/R6S5dkQ https://imgur.com/40FgUAS

You still require to upgrade to tier 2 boots before you can opt into the real cool stuff of passive and active effects. Once you did that, you get access to three slots you can fill with one of the available options. At this points, I was not sure what to think about changing items in slots. It'd be very useful to change e.g. a passive effect later in the game without having to sell the full boots item and rebuy the other stuff again.

This system embraces the idea of the 3-4 elemantal aspects of boots, with tier 2 boots being the movement speed requirement to gain access to the other aspects: one slot for a secondary stat, one slot for a passive effect and one slot for an active effect. However, the first option has the advantage, that it averages out the secondary stats around a gold value of about 500 gold which is hard to achieve with the second version: You get the component and its stats but nothing more.

https://imgur.com/eDnUZfZ https://imgur.com/Striskq https://imgur.com/2EGptdf https://imgur.com/j0xHDpo https://imgur.com/kBgmThH

Especially the predator option overlaps with the correspondent Keystone and It'd be more consistent to find a different option(s) for a Keystone instead.

Version one is much more similar to what we have currently and respectively with the old enchantments while the second one is untypical for items at all as it includes a slot mechanic in a slot based system (item slots). The second one required more coding of course.

What's more important is the question whether or not the more linear process of upgrading the boots is the better option or not. You could argue for both:

"Linear upgrade process delays the passive and active effects which is good because they are too valuable to be available with just 1325 gold. They are hidden behind an indirect gold barrier and can't be rushed that fast - making them more special to aquire"

versus

"Giving players the option to rush a passive or active effect create exciting choices early on both in decision making and gameplay when surprising the oponent with an active effect. It gives players really good agency on their choices like no other items in the game which makes them valuable outside of just being mandatory form their 45 flat MS."

I think I forgot some points I wanted to make here - maybe I'll add them once I remember. Feel free to leave some comments (pay attention to the disclaimer) - I'll read them tomorrow :-*

4 Comments

Aptest2 votes

very nice post overall.

I want to add one thing. Some boots today limit the design space. Specifically item 3020 are the problem.

Why is this? Because Damage is a primary attribute and most mages are balanced around having "only just enough" of it. Therefore if they forego this item, they increase the amount of spells needed to kill a target therefore severely limit the mage. I.E. the damage budget afforded to mages to make sure they don't go crazy, in combination with their reliance on CDs, cause them to be unable to swap this item for an alternative, because this item gives damage.

A rework on boots should maybe remove "choice limiting options" Boots should not give damage to classes that rely on burst, and specifically boots should not grant Mpen or Lethality, and maybe they should not give damage at all (no +AD boots, or +AS boots).

Alternatively the primary stat on boots should be available regardless of boot type, and thus should be transferred to the enchantment.

This should be done with the explicit intent of removing "must buy" options in favor of choice and advantage that is derived from that choice.

Huang Shaotian2 votes

Not sure how this doesn't have move views/upvotes.

VaVahik2 votes

Overall, I agree with the idea, but Imo it's not done that well. In my opinion, smells like Smite (and personally I hate the smell), where you just have basic stats on shoes, ad shoes, ap shoes, armor shoes, mr shoes etc.

It would be just better if we had CDR/mpen components that would only be shoes materials and their stats are unique, this way we can have current shoes' base stats. Imo, having AD/AP on shoes would straight break the game, but removing mpen/cdr would make it boring, even if balanced.

I posted my own idea, where t2 shoes consist of 3 components - t1 shoes, basic component, and a gem crystal, that automatically fuses into your boots upon purchase. The crystal holds the +20 MS that t2 shoes have, as well as some mobility passives depending on it's color.

Examples of items (excuse my bad naming of those)

**Sorcerer's Shoes of Determination ** Shoes + (a new magic pene item) + red stone = +45 MS, 13 mpen, 25% tenacity shoes.

Berserker Greaves of Kiting Shoes + (dagger) + yellow stone = +45 MS, 25% ASPD, +10% MS away from enemies for 3 sec after dealing damage to them.

Ninja Tabis of Stickiness Shoes + (cloth armor) + green stone = +45 MS, +20 Armor, +15% MS towards CC'd enemies

Mercury Threads of Enlightment Shoes + (magic resist) + blue stone = +45 MS, +25 MR, +15% SS and items CDR

Booty Boots of Mobility (lmao) Shoes + Shoes + orange stone = +60 MS, +50 additional MS when out of combat.

Ionian Sandals of Nimbleness Shoes + (a new CDR item) + cyan stone = +45 MS, + 10% CDR, -35% slow strength.

This doesn't stop you from adding shoe ingredients, should you ever feel that you want to add a HP/5 or MP/5 shoes, or the upgrade that adds the old Captain enchantment, etc. I just added the 6 usual shoes and separated their passives (aside from Tabi ninja's , because those are inherently strong against AA champs, which doesn't fit the bill of a mobility item I think) into interchangable choices.

  • Sorcs of Enlightment would be great for Annie, but Ahri would prefer Sorcs of Kiting.

  • Against Irelia or Udyr, you might want Tabis of Determination, but vs GP or Illaoi you would prefer Tabis of Nimbleness.

  • Against Zed or Fizz, you might want (whatever) of Enlightment, but they can opt for (whatever) of Mobility.

  • On Nasus or Skarner, you might want Ionians of Stickiness, but Determination or Enlightment wouldn't be bad too.

The list goes on and on. Flexibility of those shoes would reduce the problem with them being quite slot-ineffective, without adding extra late game- power or raising the gold cap for the winning team, like the old enchantments did.

Cronovey1 votes

I'm not entirely sure what you're really trying to accomplish: for the most part it seems like this would just be injecting extra stats into the game unnecessarily.

For example, the Ninja Tabi effect being purchased on other boots; how often is that likely to happen? If you're buying something to reduce auto attack damage, it's likely you'd also want armor. Sure, I could buy the passive on a mid laner and get 25 AP. But without my magic pen, deleting the enemy carry I'm supposed to be on is much more difficult so it still looks like a more appealing option while I buy an Hourglass. I could buy some HP boots instead but in the long term the armor will generally be more effective health than 200 HP. Sure, I could get the CC reduction from current Mercs on something that isn't MR, but the vast majority of CC comes from champions dealing magic damage overall. I can't see a world where I'd say "Oh, there's a Renekton top against me, better buy the Armor/Tenacity boots even though they have a Lux and Braum" where it would be better than regular old Mercs.

The same situation occurs with AP boots and buying things like Fury. It's not a situation that is going to occur outside of very tiny niche cases (Kayle, for example) and 99% of the time it'll just be purchased with the penetration enchantment. Same with AD boots; it'll almost always be bought with the Fury enchantment, especially when you're including the Phage passive on it which will make AD champions unstoppable/unkiteable. Adding that kind of sticking power to a boot enchantment is honestly going to be a balance nightmare. ADCs are now able to get bonus movement speed very early in the game for sticking power and repositioning? Junglers just got their go-to enchantment as well for free sticking power without ever having to build a Phage or Cleaver. Imagine Graves in the jungle with these. You'd never escape; it's a grievous mistake to ever allow something like that to exist.

I think some of the issue is that you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. You also have to consider your adaptive boots. Look at unique examples like Corki; he needs magic penetration but often only builds a Void Staff for AP. His boots would be adaptive to Lethality even though he does mostly magic damage, so he's no longer got the penetration he desires and is now forced into something like CDR or your Fury enchantment, especially if it didn't have the massively broken Rage passive on it.

I like the idea of looking at a system that hasn't been changed much over the years other than minor stat changes, but this is probably just because they've been a stable part of the game for a long time that hasn't needed any balance work in comparison to other items.

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