Boards›Gameplay

Fun and healthy out play and counter play - does it exist?

IP Masquerena··1 votes·1,980 views

We keep hearing how "X champ is not fun to play against" or "Y champ has no counter play", I was wondering, what even is "fun to play", "healthy counter play" or "healthy out play", and I for one just can't find an answer.

A few situation I had in-game looked like this: (when I pick up a champ, I mostly play that champ for a bunch of games in a row, hence while Yasuo, Zed and Yi are super common picks, hence why I had so many different experiences against them)

Ahri vs Zed - game 1

I get low while trading with Zed, and I know that if I can land a Charm on him while under tower, I can kill him, but if I stay under tower, he won't even try to ult me, so I go out, bait his ult by using mine, as soon as he ults, I dash back under tower, Charm him and I get my solo kill. He praised me for the smart out play as he didn't expect me to do that and even added me after the game and said it was a fun lane to play.

So in this example, Zed saw it as fair, I did something he didn't expect me to do. It was fair and clean.

Ahri vs Zed - game 2

I'm low, Zed puts his W under my tower and ults for the triple Q YouTube montage, fails because I charm him under the tower and kite him away with the Glacial Augment while he dies because he has no escape. He played himself, he fucked up hard, but he didn't see it like that, what he did was cry how my Charm is unfair and that there was no out play there, just a broken ability with no counter play to it.

So in this example, Zed didn't consider that out play fair nor healthy, after all, you don't call an ability you consider healthy as "broken".

Although both examples are the exact same situation, with the minor difference being that I didn't had to force the Zed to dive me with ult, he did it himself, each Zed saw the situation differently, one considers it fair and an actual out play, while the other calls it broken and without counter play.

Kayn vs Yasuo - game 1

My laner backs, so I'm moving up to cover mid from Yasuo and we start dancing, each one of us dashing around to dodge each other's abilities, I use my E to dodge a Tornado, but after a few more seconds, we both die, I kill him with my ult and Q, but his Ignite takes me down with him. All that dancing took a nice 10-12 seconds, and after we died, he said that it was fun, and to which I agree, it was fun because the first mistake in all that dancing would've died, and I still died in the end as he was 3-0. For him, all that dashing and dodging was fair, neither did something unfair or toxic.

Kayn vs Yasuo - game 2

On the bot lane, Yasuo's split pushing, so I go down there to kill him as Rhaast. Just like with the other one, we start dancing, we both get hit by a knock up so he doesn't have the chance to ult, I dodge one more Tornado with my E and kill him. He starts complaining how Rhaast is OP, as he can't ult me because I dash too much (ok?) along my knock ups. For him, it wasn't fair, he couldn't play as he wanted, I didn't let him do his plan, so it wasn't fun nor fair.

Again, another example of perception, although the situations are almost exactly the same, what one player sees fair, another sees as unfair.

Evelynn vs Yi

This one was simple, as I use W when I see him and wait for him to Q then break the Charm and kill him multiple times during the match, he couldn't do anything about it because of my timing, he kept crying how the combo has no counter play, which let's be honest, it kinda doesn't, but that's for another time. But when our Mundo and Nautilus were calling him OP and without counter play as he was melting either of them in a 1v1, he told them that Yi is actually weak and that he only kills them because he's the better player.

For this one, it shows that for some players, counter play, fairness and healthy kits are only when they do it. We all know that once a Yi is fed, there's no stopping him unless he either fucks up hard or gets hard focused and CC'd. "Just CC him" is the only counter play you hear here for Yi.

In my opinion, in the end, fun and healthy counter/out plays are based too much on player perspective, so you can't balance against that no matter how hard you try. Some will say to "balance for the majority", but then comes the problem, who's the majority that should be balanced for?

  • By elo? If that's the case, then why isn't it fair or unhealthy? Is it something that requires co-op between players or a certain amount of game knowledge? If yes, like it was the case with Yorik, should we actually kill the champ so bad players can feel good about themselves instead of trying to teach them how to play better?

  • By ban rate? Why is the champion banned in the first place? So many use ban rate as an example of "toxic kit", but, why is the champion actually banned? Too strong? Unfun to play against? Both? Other reasons? Why is it exactly banned? I permaban Shaco because I just don't like playing against him. I tried him, he's just a dumb design, but for others, Shaco is fine and don't have problems with him. We also see bans because they don't want the champion in their team, trolling (people banning Kai'sa so I don't get to play her in the jungle in unranked games), angry bans (I can't tell you how many times my Taliyah got banned because I didn't want to let the guy autofilled go mid), and other cases. In the end, many can't reach an actual and unanimous conclusion for why a champ is banned, so how would you actually balance it around ban rate when the champion although banned, is banned by different people for different reasons?

A vast majority of players don't have fun when they lose, so no matter what they lose against, it's unfun (prepare to see the comment section filled with "but I have fun losing against X, just how from the 3 actual Aatrox mains, when he got reworks, you got the boards filled with "Aatrox" mains who found the new one too complex for them while the old one being S tier right before the rework so they wanted their easy wins back). Many just want to win, they don't want fair and fun games, the games are already fun and fair when they win, but not when they lose. Those people don't want balance, they want a fake balance where they win by doing the same thing every single game. Thinking? Who does that? Sheesh, just ask Rakan. (not saying Rakan is brain dead, calm down and put the pitchforks aside)

A good while ago, there was a player on the boards saying that Akali needs to have enough counter play that she loses lane against any champion if the other player is good enough, but a few comments later said that Zed needs the ability to come ahead regardless of lane and match-up because he is designed to snowball and win like that and if he can't he's useless. Basically counter play in his opinion is based on who he hates playing against and who he plays, he mains Zed? As little counter play as possible. He hates Akali? Needs to die as soon as she enters the lane.

But I want to ask, since many on the boards keep asking for "fair and healthy counter play", what is that actually? Can you give examples?

13 Comments

Lovelle1 votes

Yi is a melee champion with no utility, and all of his damage comes from auto-attacks. That is actually a pretty big weakness in a game that heavily favors champs with burst damage and/or utility.

Hot LeBlanc Yuri2 votes

{quoted}

Yi is a melee champion with no utility, and all of his damage comes from auto-attacks. That is actually a pretty big weakness in a game that heavily favors champs with burst damage and/or utility.

Are you implying that Yi doesnt have burst damage or utility? Because he has plenty of all 3

Lovelle1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hot LeBlanc Yuri,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6Efvcgnl,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2019-05-04T17:56:40.810+0000)

Are you implying that Yi doesnt have burst damage or utility? Because he has plenty of all 3

His only burst is his gap closer+evasion skill, which has a long cooldown. In terms of utility, what does he offer to a team aside from damage?

IP Masquerena2 votes

Well, that depends how you define utility.

If it's just CC and slows, then yea, he has none, but if you define it as what can Yi do that other's can't, then we have a whole different story to tell.

Objective control for one. His objective control is stupidly strong, and while yes, a good bunch of junglers can solo Ancient Drakes quite fast, Yi is the only jungler who can solo Baron reliably after Rageblade and Wit's End, and even very fast with those 2 items along a Blade of the Ruined King or Death's Dance to heal even more.

Although it's not the "by the book utility", having the ability solo Baron at any point gives your team a masive advantage if they play it right and aren't total monkeys.

Have your team force a push on bot lane, what's the enemy team gonna do? Unless they have something that can 1 shot Yi and CC him at the same time (Evelynn for example) that also quite fed, you can't 1v1 the Yi, so you need to send more than 1 person to the Baron to hope to stop him, but if you do, you're left at a disadvantage on the defense as it's a 3v4, with 2 of your strongest team members going after Yi, as sure as hell you ain't gonna send that Soraka and 0-12 Yasuo to stop him.

So while yes, his "utility" comes from his damage, it's how he does the damage that's the thing that gives his that utility. There are other strong damage junglers, Blue Kayn, Rek'sai, Lee, Hecarim, Nidalee or Evelynn for example, (yes, yes, yes, I know Rek'sai and Hecarim have some CC in their kit, but that CC isn't the reason you pick them, but for their damage), yet none of those can solo Baron at any point in the game.

Lovelle1 votes

I have a hard time believing he can solo Baron with only Rageblade and Wit's End. Maybe with a Bloodrazor and/or Botrk as well, in which case Trundle and Kayle could do the same, and they actually have utility.

My point is that Yi has plenty of weaknesses and is manageable at all points of the game due to how simple his kit is, as well as having no teamfight-oriented utility. Sure he can do a ton of damage that is near impossible to mitigate, but there is so much CC and burst in the game that that shoudn't happen outside of low level games.

IP Masquerena1 votes

That's why he has a 52% wr with a 7% pick rate in D+? He is in the top 10 most picked junglers in Diamond.

And obviously Bloodrazor should be considered by default as it's his jungle item.

I can't say about Trundle, haven't saw him played for months, as for Kayle, debatable, never saw her do it, but I can't say she can't either, as I once did with Shyvana, but was fed A F at that point.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

I'd say it boils down to a couple problems;

  • Lack of vulnerability &/or too short of windows to retaliate, partially from newer champions having negligible mana costs via too high regeneration, and also from an excessive abundance of cooldown reduction.
  • Champion kit's being able to deny being punished for obvious mistakes, granted sometimes this is due to matchup, but when it's something that happens more often than it should be regardless of who's going against them, that's when it's a serious issue.
  • Snowballing fiesta meta, things spiral out of control so quickly that the loosing team has no chance of coming back unless the winning team does something willfully stupid in unison, more or less making only early game champions viable short of cheese, and unless you're playing one too you're going to struggle against the bullying trades.
IP Masquerena1 votes

Well, I think the issue with "vulnerability" Windows is how vulnerable a champ is during that window.

For example the Riven nerf in 9.10. It's considered a strong nerf at high elo because people are capable punishing her when her E is in Cool down, but in lower elos it's insignificant because people aren't able to.

Also look at Yorik, a good while ago he was hard nerfed because low elo didn't knew how to play vs his ghouls even tho he was at the time only good in low elo, after the nerf, his D+ stats were less than 1% pick rate with a 46-48% win rate.

So counter play would also come to player knowledge, if 1v1 high elos can punish something, should it be nerfed just because lower elos don't know how/don't gave the mechanics?

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

Interesting question, and given your example of yorik then the answer should be yes, but riven along with several others continues to stomp low levels without much adjustment. Favoritism is something riot's always done (look up leesin's history), but the Why they are has changed over the years from being pet projects to what looks the coolest on television.

IP Masquerena1 votes

Currently she's not stomping anything in lower elos, quite the opposite so the nerf was bigger than expected. Her win rate dropped across the board.

Favouritism exists, but thy name is Zed not Riven.

Accordion to U.GG, here are the win, pick and ban rates for both in all elos (in that order, so I don't have to say next to each what they are):

Iron Riven: 45.07%, 5.8%, 2.1% Zed: 50.22%, 15.8%, 45%

Bronze Riven: 45.39%, 6.1%, 2.8% Zed: 49.62%, 16.2%, 51.8%

Silver: Riven: 47.02%, 7.3%, 4.1% Zed: 49.67%, 14.4%, 57.9%

Gold Riven: 48.85%, 8.8%, 6.3% Zed: 50.2%, 12.7%, 59.6%

Platinum Riven: 50.44%, 10.1%, 9.6% Zed: 50.78%, 11.9%, 55%

Diamond: Riven: 51.56%, 11%, 13.9% Zed: 50.71%, 10.8%, 48.2%

Master: Riven: 51.06%, 10.6%, 19% Zed: 54.08%, 9.4%, 24.7%

Grandmaster: Riven: 51.15%, 9.3%, 19.5% Zed: 53.6%, 8.7%, 21.7%

Challenger: Riven: 60%, 9.9%, 21.8% Zed: 35.9%, 8%, 15.4%

And in a thread about Riven, a guy replied that Zed's stats are fine, nothing unusual but Riven still is too strong yet she only sees a positive win rate starting plat, while Zed, due to his play rate, can be said to only see a negative win rate in Challenger. The stats were taken last night.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

Win rate is only part of the trio, there's also the victory probability over time scale to consider, but even all that taken together doesn't paint the whole picture. Favoritism in general has been geared towards physical champions, while I'd agree zed's been ignored more than her in recent patches, what's he doing in top lane when he's more successful middle? Otherwise why is riven being played middle with the expectations to match him?

IP Masquerena1 votes

Those are the stats for their best roles, top for Riven, mid for Zed, not both in the same role.

If you want, you can look up the stats for Zed top and Riven mid yourself.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

Figured I'd double check since you didn't mention it initially, wasn't sure if both running jungle was a new meta or something lol

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by IP Masquerena

Question about Zed, the most annoying assassin to face of them all
Gameplay182 comments
79
votes
According to Zed....
Gameplay63 comments
42
votes
Boards: "I want champion diversity...
Gameplay131 comments
40
votes
Regarding the future of Akali and the board's "Riot doesn't listen to us"
Gameplay92 comments
33
votes
And the award for most skins goes to....
General Discussion26 comments
30
votes
How to counter pick Nocturne 101
Gameplay53 comments
23
votes