Hey all,
Anyone got any questions about how we make champions or thoughts on what we could be doing with champions in LoL they'd like to discuss? Watching the LCS playoffs at the moment and figured would be a good chance to get some forum posting in too for a couple of hours.
Update: Thanks for the chat folks, need to head off and get some other stuff done.
Earl Eulrich10 votesAny thoughts on DFG?
I think it currently only causes very bad instances of gameplay (getting blown up in a too-short window to counterplay/react) instead of adding anything of value to the game...also forcing nerfs on Champions that work well with it from time to time. Doesn´t seem to be very good design to me.
RiotMeddler9 votesBeing able to add another spell to your kit via items as a mage/magic damage caster is interesting and has the potential for some good gameplay. Having it be a straight multiplier of all damage, with high reliability, useful on a limited number of champions, hard to track and very front loaded/burst focused is problematic however. Good goal, not good execution basically IMO.
Lichblade5 votesWhat does the design team think of Hextech Gunblade? This item is never built on any other character except for Akali. It has an odd identity design of a DFG+Will of the Ancient and Blade of the Ruin King. (An active nuke, AP, Spellvamp, AD, lifesteal and slow)
All though it may look unique, the problem with this item is that it gives a ton load on stats that Akali doesn't make use of effectively (AD and lifesteal) yet shes forced to buy it in order to function in her current playstyle.
xivk8 votesUrgot is labeled "marksman/tank." Do you believe that is a viable combination, or are those roles mutually opposed? If it is viable, how deep is that design space? Do you see any underserved role combinations that you would like to explore?
RiotMeddler8 votesAt the end of the day the role tags are there as general indications of what you can expect from a champion, not as perfect descriptors of what they'll be or limiters of what they should be allowed to be. For some champs, Urgot being a good example, they're only going to be somewhat accurate as a result. Marksman/tank for example implies some pretty contradictory things - squishy to protect versus front line initiator or fight controller, builder of primarily offensive items versus primarily defensive items, high value squishy target to kill if you can versus hard to kill target to kill if you must etc. It's possible that that combination of tags may still be the best shorthand to describe a champion though, the overall message being more important than the details. Also as a side note Urgot should probably be a marksman/fighter rather than marksman/tank.
In terms of design space there there's definitely a lot to explore. Support/assassin is one I feel's got a lot of potential in particular - imagine a character with an assassin like play style (squishy, active defensives instead of toughness, flanks the enemy) who, after going in, grants various team utility effects, rather than trying to explode a single enemy. Lot of problems you'd need to solve, but lot of potential for a really different, fun, interesting experience too.
Shinjusuke1 voteswhat about an Assassin/Fighter?
very fine line to walk, but imagine a champion who engages the fight as a bulky fighter/tank-like character, and then if they get a kill (or a teammate get's killed maybe) they go into a rage and trade their survivability for killing power?
RiotMeddler2 votesIt's a really appealing combination certainly, easy one to get wrong though by giving the champion the best of both worlds - high damage character with great target selection who goes in whenever they want, is tough and brawls well too. End result of that is champions like some of the fighters we've made in the past that lack clear weaknesses and as a result have their strengths normalized away as well.
Not to say it's not worth exploring, would have to set really clear boundaries about what such a champ would do though (e.g. their initial damage is really subpar, not just somewhat subpar, compared to other fighters).
JungHai06 votesI am a big fan of immobile burst mages like Brand and Xerath, so Vel'koz's release was a happy time for me. Given the mobility creep that is eroding away at my precious mages what led you guys to design another burst mage with no mobility and what kind of thought processes did you guys have considering champions like Zed and Yasuo can easily outplay older mages?
RiotMeddler3 votesOur intent with Vel'koz was to create a somewhat target agnostic (hence the true damage passive) sustained damage mage that could steadily melt through the enemy team in full on fights and contribute meaningful poke before hand but would need to be protected (Kog style) from enemy divers. Overall I feel Vel'koz occupies that space relatively well, but he's not quite distinct enough to have a really clear gameplay identity - we've made a few too many non mobile mages that bring relatively similar things and haven't always ensured mobile damage dealers pay a sufficient price for their mobility.
3mptylord2 votesSee, this is what Xerath was before his rework and what I loved playing him for. In his rework discussion, it was stated that this ability to kill anyone indiscriminately was bad as far as design went - and, even though I loved him, I accepted that for the health of the game. Then you released Vel'Koz and I was just like... well, I was annoyed. Fortunately I love Vel'Koz, but there's still a bitter taste in my mouth about Xerath. Either Vel'Koz is also overpowered or the spiel about Xerath was bogus.
Khodexus2 votesOne of the big differences here, is that Vel'Koz doesn't have nearly the same range as Xerath had/has. There are definite similarities in their kits, however, almost disturbingly so, in fact. They both have a line effect for wave clear, a slowing skill-shot, and an E that is meant to be a safety net, briefly locking down enemies that get too close. Their ults are completely different, however, and Vel'Koz's at least, requires him to get moderately close to an enemy and can be fairly easily interrupted.
Atajo5 votesHey Meddler,
There are still a few sources of non-critical strike randomness on some champion kits that can have a huge effect on their power level. Gangplank's ultimate, Kennen's ultimate, Sion's passive, and Brand's ultimate come to mind off the top of my head. Given the apparent tendency towards the removal of randomness in game (Sion is getting a rework, dodge was removed, Baron spells won't be random post SR-update), what is your position regarding a potential rework for those abilities?
In my opinion, having to compensate for the low possibility of maximum effect has a negative pressure on the average use case of the ability. For instance, Brand's ult could hit his main target 3 times for some really impressive damage.... or it could go over to the side and kill some minons. Kennen's ultimate isn't guaranteed to hit a specific person for pushing 2 seconds.
Secondly, is there a particular reason Brand's ult doesn't have a bounce range indicator like Nami's Ebb and Flow does?
RiotMeddler4 votesYeah, randomness without good justification's something we're removing. Sion's new kit doesn't include that passive for example and Gangplank's ult's also changing to a more consistent version at some point (we might pull that change forwards before GP's rework, not sure yet).
Kennen's ult I think there's a bit of an argument for, given it creates some reactive plays on both Kennen's part (he has other ways to trigger the stun) and his enemies' part (how much do you want to push your luck/can you assess who Kennen will prioritize stunning you?). I haven't played enough Kennen myself though to judge whether there's enough there that's worthwhile or not though. Brand's ult I agree can be extremely frustrating, it does mean that fighting Brand, even when he's underfed, is always a risky endeavor and so any Brand should be treated with caution, something that's got some value in a non mobile, low utility mage (reduces irrelevance when behind).
Can't think of a good reason for Brand ult not to have that indicator, we'll add it.
Linna Excel3 votesWhat's the justification for keeping critical strikes in the game?
Earl Eulrich2 votesI think actually worse(read "far more frustrating") than Brand is Fiddle with his spamable e, especially as it can chain-silence you with a single spell from time to time.
RiotMeddler5 votesThanks for the chat folks, need to head off and get some other stuff done.
Prof Nekko1 votesdo you have any idea when you're going to be doing this again? I kinda have questions myself and it's hard for me to attract attention in my threads despite my opinion that a 200+ page balance thread should have at least one red response. So I would like to see if I can get my question done in a Q&A
RiotMeddler2 votesI'll be dropping back into this thread a bit when I've got time this week so please do throw more questions/thoughts in.
Aveolus3 votesim curious as to the design of aesthetics process.
why was gnar made as a little furry child, for example?
i really liked 
' design.
do you have certain quotas you want to hit, of one furry champion, one hot guy champion, etc?
RiotMeddler6 votesWhen coming up with a new champion we'll start by looking at what our goals are. With Gnar for example we wanted to explore both a classic man/monster contrast (Jekyll/Hyde, Banner/Hulk etc), add a different take on a playful personality and investigate how a young child might be able to survive in a dangerous world. We don't have firm quotas, but do want to offer a range of champions to appeal to a variety of players (so variety in theme, role, gender, age, mindset, appearance, difficulty etc). Sometimes that'll mean we make concepts with broad appeal (dual gun weilding fighter of the undead on a quest for vengeance), sometimes ideas that are more niche (highly intelligent tentacle monster researcher scout).
Shinjusuke2 votesIf I can ask, since Aveolus brought up Varus, why doesn't Varus' Q do more damage?
Not speaking from a balance perspective, but I remember being super pumped for Varus only to be saddened that his Q isn't necessarily his strongest damage point.
Jayce's shock blast, particularly accelerated, does a ton more damage, but it's just one part of his (very overbearing) kit, where as I think a lot of players were hoping Varus' Q was the defining damage source for the champion, in a similar way that pre-reworked Nid spears were her defining damage source.
The reason I pose this as a champion design question is it's always been this way, Varus' Q wasn't nerfed into being low damage. It got a bit of a buff a long time ago, but still nowhere near as abusive as Jayce's shock blast by any means. Did you guys design him without the intent for his Q to be a main source of damage, or was that the intent and he just never quite ended up that way?
Personally I prefer playing ADCs who I feel like are more casters than autoattackers (Ezreal, Lucian, Draven in his own weird way sort of), and Varus feels like he should've/could've been that, but he isn't. Considering he's got the least escape potential of any adc as far as I know (an area slow with a cast time, and an ultimate, but no escape and super-slow move speed), why doesn't he have the same kind of ridiculous damage that, for example, Jinx has? Is it a design decision or a balance failing?
RiotMeddler3 votesVarus was originally intended to be more focused around his Q than he is now, and it's a direction I'd like to see if we can push him further in. At the time that amount it bullied others in lane was one of the big things that had us hold it back, would be inclined to look at late game damage scaling and either mana cost or a way of regaining mana late game as a result. Would want to avoid turning him into a character that never engaged/took any risks though, so wouldn't want to reduce his power elsewhere dramatically to compensate.
ProfDrDeath3 votesWay of regaining mana? Do you think maybe giving him a mana-return effect on popping W stacks would be a good idea?
Something like, giving back 2/4/6/8/10 mana (example numbers, obviously) per stack popped? That would incentivize him to at least take somewhat of a risk, as he'd still need to get close to apply the stacks.
RiotMeddler3 votesCould be something along that line potentially. Depends on whether mana's what he most needs (not just wants) to better realize that late game poke contribution and whether it should be a restore that requires he get into auto attack range or not though.
Shinjusuke2 votesWhen you create character-defining abilities, such as Vi's ult, what is your guys' cutoff point for when the tradeoff between "iconic" and "overpowered" becomes too much? Using Vi as an example, I've banned her literally every single game I've been allowed to ban because that ultimate is just too much. (Not trying to derail, just for context). At what point do you guys say "that's a cool ability, but it's going to be too strong"?
How do you guys go about determining base damage numbers for abilities when in the early stages of champ development?
How do you decided the cutoff point between base damage vs scaling damage? Is it a rough estimate based on the "intended" class of the champion?
This may be closer to Live Balance than intended, but what makes you guys do things like dumpster Ezreal immediately after season 2, and then release Jinx and Lucian, both of which have 3/4ths of what made Ezreal so OP in season 2? Again, not trying to necessarily get into champion balance, but I flipped tables on both their releases, because they're literally everything that made Ezreal so powerful, except for one aspect of him each. When creating similar champion designs like this, what makes having a whole kit be considered way overpowered on one champion, but okay on others?
May add more, if you're willing to answer these.
RiotMeddler6 votesOur goal with signature abilities is to distinctive skills that are situationally extremely powerful (if used right) but not universally overwhelming. Something we're working on at the moment is making our champion roster, both new and existing champions, more distinct where possible, and putting power into iconic abilities tends to be a great way to do that. Having said that there are still a lot of general design principles it's important to follow despite that. Counterplay's one of the big ones, and somewhere Vi's ult, cool skill though it is, is a bit narrow (counterplay's too dependent on the skillset of the target, abilities are usually healthier where there are some accessible universal counterplay options).
A champion's initial damage numbers in early testing are usually just a rough estimate based off somewhat similar abilities (e.g. if creating a single target click to hit ability a designer might look at Annie's Q as a starting point). Early prototyping's not focused on numbers much though, it's the concepts of what the skills might do (is this fun, interesting a good thematic fit for the character, adding some new to the game etc) that we focus on. As a result numbers just need to be balanced enough to give useful testing on that stuff/not heavily distort the test for other test points.
Base versus scaling damage depends on how item dependent a champion should be, how snowbally or not they should be, at which phase in the game they should get their damage, how strongly we feel certain builds should be incentivized etc.
Shinjusuke1 votesThanks a lot for the responses!
Lots of great information there!
If I can ask, what makes you guys decide how much of a champions kit does any one thing? Is there a sort of "template" you start with for deciding stuff like what each skill does?
The wording of that is a little weird, the best way I can explain is through example.
If you break down a champions kit, each skill can sort of be organized into it's heaviest useful aspect between utility/cc, sustain/safety, and damage. Talon's Rake, for example, would primarily be a damage-focused skill, with utility/cc being less the focus, and sustain not being in the skill at all.
What's the thought process for determining how much of each of those things goes into a champion's kit? Do you guys try to balance the 3 at all? Do you guys ever think things like "this champion has 3 damage-focused skills and no sustain/safety focused ones, we should make their 4th skill focused on utility/cc so they can catch targets", etc?
RiotMeddler4 votesFirst we do goal setting at the champion level. That means we'll start by identifying what the intended role of the champion is - what do they bring to the game that's new, what are their strengths and weakness etc. From there we'll then break that down to figure out what tools they'll need. If for example one of the goals is 'this champion is consistently hard to kill, protective of others' then we'll look at skills that offer non item reliant tankiness and defensive team utility. One thing that's important to watch for though is that you're giving a champion just the tools they need, not all the tools they want (which leads to kits with no clear weaknesses, an issue we've run into at times).
CS3Narutoi1 votesThank you so much for this comment. I've been trying to tinker out some thoughts on giving Zilean a rework, but the more I thought about it the more my set of changes seem to deviate from my original set of goals. Now I know that I'll have to identify the champion's intended role and then give them the abilities that they need to succeed in that role. Hopefully I can start setting down some solid ideas~~ So yeah, thank you very much! And if you have any other tips on designing a champion's kit, please share them! :D (Aaaand I hope I'm not asking too much, but if you have time and don't mind, would you like to take a look at my Zilean rework ideas? It would mean a lot...thanks!! ;P)
RiotMeddler4 votesFew other general champion design thoughts off the top of the head:
Don't worry about numbers, except as rough guidelines. The mechanics of how skills work, concepts of what new they offer, distinct niche a champion could occupy, new experiences for the player are the things that matter most. Describing and analyzing how Thresh can pull an ally to himself is much more important a thing to think about and focus communication on than how much damage his E passive does.
Put power more on the most interesting parts of the kit, not on the needed, but familiar, bits that help the character function. Blitzcrank for example would be a much less interesting, fun champion if his Q range was dramatically shorter and his base stats were much higher.
Ask yourself whether something's a good idea, or a good idea for this particular character. This is one we run into all the time, cool skills that just aren't a good fit for the champ in question. Fizz for example had the ability to place springboard traps on the ground he and his team could run over to bounce in an early kit. Was a lot of fun, and a skill we'll do sometime on some champ, but didn't offer him what he needed to function as an assassin.
Try and restrain the number of different effects you put on abilities where possible. The fewer effects you have the more impacting and distinctive each can be. To be extreme imagine a skill that did 12 different things when it hit an enemy for example - each is going to have to be so weak it's hard to feel and not worth playing around.
Hamadriade2 votesCan you tell us something about a sand mage concept please? Would you make such a champion?
RiotMeddler5 votesWe took a swing at a sand mage concept a couple of years ago but weren't happy with the results and put him on hold as a result. That was with the intention of returning to him someday though to see if there was a different take on the idea that might work out better. Fingers crossed that's something we'll have success with at some point, it's a cool space to work in.
Shinjusuke2 votesHave you guys ever considered taking player-made concepts and putting them more or less directly into the game?
Once or twice there have been community designed champions where Riot has had significant overlap between the concept and a released champ, or something along those lines, but never actually giving credit for some of the ideas to the player who designed them. Or, on occasion, Rioters have said they go to the forums for inspiration sometimes, but they never give credit out to the people whose ideas gave them said inspiration.
Have you guys ever considered (or done, I wouldn't know) saying "hey, that's a really cool concept", and actually implementing the player's champion? Or asking to player to assist in the creation of one?
If that comes off as accusatory or something I apologize, that's not the intent at all. I'm just wondering, because more than once I've seen Rioters say that they go look at player-made designs for ideas sometimes, and there are a boatload of player-made champions. Some of these have ideas that are seen in champs released later, yet I've never seen a Rioter pop into the forums to say "hey, that was a great idea you had, we decided to add something like that to [x]!".
RiotMeddler3 votesIdeas aren't the hard part of champion creation, figuring out how to make those ideas work, testing, rejecting, replacing, polishing, aligning with other parts of the process (visual goals, intended storytelling opportunities) etc are. For the average champion only one, or rarely two things, from the initial kit created on paper, survive to the final released kit, and even then generally in heavily modified form. Just directly implementing someone's idea isn't a practical approach as a result unfortunately.
Earl Eulrich1 votesSo...Azir is not said sand-mage?
already love his design...though one question rises for me - if you have more than 1 minion, will it be intended to have every minion hitting an opponent applying on-hit-effects?
RiotMeddler2 votesAzir is what the sandmage concept became. We concluded that the character we wanted to make was a leader, an emperor in fact, with dreams of empire again. Using that theme as the basis for his kit made a lot of sense as a result, with sand as a supporting element/tool not his definition.
Hyrum Graff1 votesMeddler confirmed, maximum troll? #Azir
RiotMeddler2 votesCouldn't resist :)
Oraenos2 votesMeddler, can we get a sneakpeak on Sion's VU. a small description will do wonders! And how far are you in the project?
Great topic btw, we need more threads like these.
RiotMeddler4 votesI'll leave sharing timelines/details up to the Sion team, don't want to spoil any of their plans. Can say that it's coming along really well though, overall a pretty different kit but with some familiar elements.
zork8241 votesHow did you come up with Yasuo? Where does his double crit chance come from? He's my favourite champ and I'd like to know some more about him :D
RiotMeddler3 votesWe wanted to explore the samurai archtype with Yasuo, but didn't just want to do the classic swordmaster thing by itself. Control over the wind was something the Yasuo pod (a group of developers working on a project) hit on pretty early, which resonated well both with the themes we were going for (wanderer, speed, power) and with the way the art was going.
Double crit chance was identified as a way to offer a melee champion a needed steroid while also changing up how the character thought about itemization a bit (Yasuo's early item choices are very different than they'd be if he had a +AD steroid for example, which leads to a different set of choices and experiences than on other champions).
lostbob1171 votesOkay let's talk about some things: What are your thoughts on high damage basic cast, like Zilean's bombs, Veigar Q/R, Pantheon Q, etc. I feel like this is a bad thing, however I wonder how YOU feel about it. Maybe change my perspective on why these things exist.
Also PS: When is Ezreal W going to be changed into something more unique QQ could give you so many suggestions for it to be changed.
RiotMeddler4 votesTying too much of a champion's damage up in a single spell can lead to some power curve problems (Zilean for example bullies incredibly hard early while he's maxing Q and then falls off unsatisfyingly hard). Having said that though having high damage on a basic ability isn't necessarily problematic in my eyes - not every character needs to be three damaging abilities plus a high damage ult, even if they're played in a damage role, and non damaging abilities can open up a lot of gameplay space (e.g. Anivia's wall). Are there particular problems you see with such abilities?
Agreed, Ezreal's W is the least interesting and least satisfying part of his kit. We're certainly open to improving it, though would want to do so in a way that didn't remove an intended weakness or just straight out overpower his kit (hence the removal of the old attack speed slow for example - strong duelist against other marksmen's not a core part of Ezreal's intended identity.).
Amariithynar2 votesWell, to that I say- isn't Ezreal an explorer? Yet all he has are skillshots and a teleport-nearest-hit. Nothing he has actually suggests that explorer portion of his background- So why not something to do with that? Have him toss out an invincible ten second ward, or be able to see into bushes even without poking them, or something thematically appropriate.
RiotMeddler2 votesLike the thematic tie in, agreed that side of his character's underutilized. Would want to find something a bit broader than just vision utility for him, that sort of approach can be a solid starting point though, especially since would want to find something that wasn't just damage in order to give the skill a clearer point of distinction.
Linna Excel1 votesMeddler, what are you thoughts on Poppy?
I really like that she's got versitile build options and playstyles, I also like how she's kind of strong if she can get items and get into the late game. However she's got too many hard counters up top, she's got mana issues in solo laning, and her jungle is so-so at best. I know she can be played support, but I've never tried that.
RiotMeddler5 votesWe'd like to make substantial gameplay changes to Poppy at some point. She does some cool stuff (her E especially's fantastic), but she can get shut down a bit too hard early and lacks sufficient counterplay (late game especially).
