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Analysis: Why We Should Buff More Than Nerf

BananaJannana·2/10/2017, 7:35:52 AM·5 votes·2,350 views

The video discusses something that Dota2 does but Lol does not: they buff weak champions to make them viable, instead of nerfing strong champs.

Whats the difference between buffing the weak and nerfing the strong? When you buff a weak champion, it becomes playable; this gives more options for players to choose from. For example, lets assume jayce is strong right now. Instead of nerfing Jayce, buffing other weak champions will make them playable, and people will play jayce less because they have more options.

What you'll notice from Riot is that each patch leaves 3-4 champions MUCH stronger than the other 110+ champions in the game, which limits the player's choices of what they should play. If more champions were viable, you'd be able to play them and succeed.

Does buffing everyone make the game balanced? Nope, because balance can never be achieved in a game with more than 110 characters that have unique playstyles, build options, and scalings.

15 Comments

50000000000000002/10/2017, 7:52:42 AM5 votes

Isn't that what eventually leads to power creep? Keep buffing without nerfing, and without doing an overall check on game health, and everyone's stupidly strong.

We've sorta seen this in URF. It's fun for like the first few times you play, but after that, only the strong champions get played, and they're strong because they don't offer a lot of counterplay. Game is fun if you're playing them, but not so much if you don't.

Perfect balance doesn't necessarily make for a good game, but at the same time just breaking everyone doesn't solve the fun issue either. Besides, nerfing the strong few makes more sense than buffing literally 100s of champions to match the power level of top tier champions.

A Basic Island2/10/2017, 7:52:09 AM1 votes

oh look, this topic again with this exact video

WoonStruck2/10/2017, 7:53:58 AM1 votes

Nerf when its obvious there are problematic elements.

Buffs when its obvious the bottom end is irrelevant.

Its not that hard. Riot used to do it.

Then they stopped and decided to nerf MS by 5 or 10 when X champion is point-and-click deleting people or something.

For buffs they instead do minor reworks and overload the shit out of champions in the process.

PunnedIt2/10/2017, 8:02:08 AM1 votes

So what I'm hearing you say is... buff everyone but Yasuo?

Twitch Chat2/10/2017, 8:04:43 AM1 votes

{quoted} The video discusses something that Dota2 does but Lol does not: they buff weak champions to make them viable, instead of nerfing strong champs.

I don't think this is really true. Patch notes are normally a giant list of buffs but the straight overpowered heroes rarely get away with the exception of omni who always gets away for some reason. For example from the just released 7.02:

Shadow Demon: Disruption illusion damage taken from 200% to 300% Luna: Base attack damage reduced by 6 Lunar Blessing Night Vision bonus from 1000 to 250/500/750/1000 Level 10 Talent from +4 Armor to +15 Movement Speed Monkey King: Base armor reduced by 3 Jingu Mastery bonus damage from 80/120/160/200 to 75/100/125/150 Jingu Mastery lifesteal from 20/30/40/50% to 15/30/45/60% Wukong's Command no longer continues while reincarnating

I think the difference is that riot has some apprehension to buff a lot of the cast of their game because most of them don't actually follow the lofty game design rules that they created

LongHair Fox2/10/2017, 8:24:27 AM1 votes

To be honest that guy is talking out of his ass. Sure buffing is important but he does not consider long term goals at all. One of the reasons you don't see all champions in league is because the weakest are poorly designed. Those champions need remakes or they will make the game worse overall if they get too good.

deadlychuck2/10/2017, 8:46:08 AM1 votes

You don't need to buff everything to make the game interesting, this is just a video of mechanical changes acting as buffs.

However, what riot does is release and rework champions which have more mechanics and more options, yet keeping the champion within the same complexity of input as other champions. I mean hell, malzahar alone is a good example of this failed philosophy. Malz is far more complex of a champion now, but objectively has fewer ways in which the player can play the champion while remaining effective.

If you want to buff champions through mechanical options, then you need to increase input complexity linearly with those changes or design those mechanics in a way which they are mutually exclusive. Ekko has many different mechanical functions, but has almost no more input complexity for those functions. Even just his W functions as a Shield, Slow, Stun, and Execute, yet take no more input complexity than it would take to just use it as a stun or shield.

Effectively they remove all of the satisfaction of making a correct decision, by allowing you to answer multiple answers at the same time. Alternatively they'll give champion mechanics which occur passively, given a standard play style, which act as buffers to things that the player would otherwise need to play around (e.g. yasuo's shield).

Dynikus2/10/2017, 7:47:49 AM1 votes

constant buffing is what leads to power creep. rather than bring 20 champions up to the strength of 3, bring those 3 down to be equal to the 20. I don't play nor watch dota 2 games, but I'm going to take a guess and say they still have a meta, and they still have a small pool of champions that see frequent play in pro games with the occasional one off.

Ahristocats2/17/2017, 5:14:56 PM1 votes

that doesn't make sens

dota doesn't buff more than nerf, they buff as muchas they nerf

same in league

the problem with league is that they do it for 10 champs per patch, in dota a patch changes 100 heroes

other thing that leads dota to a more balanced game is that they balance around high elo

sincerly a league player since 2011, and dota player since 2013