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@meddler question for you or anyone else at Riot

OlafRagnarson··4 votes·369 views

How many employees at Riot have advanced degrees in mathematics with an understanding of game theory and statistical analysis?

Because, every since I started playing, I see you guys roll out changes that everyone on the boards immediately says "whoa, this item or that mastery or this combo or those buffs will make this or that champ too strong, or these champs too weak".

And sure enough, you guys roll it back a few patches later.

How come in 2 seconds people can see what is obviously a bad decision, and yet Riot apparently can not?

That's why I am thinking Riot is basically amateur hour. I don't care if you guys "are players too". I care that you guys have the right education and experience to understand massive amounts of data and variables and to understand it in a way that keeps the game balanced so you aren't constantly tweaking and then un-tweaking what you just did a few patches later.

Now up vote this like crazy so Riot will respond.

6 Comments

DevilishMetal1 votes

What, are you suggesting that they don't do the math for every single balance change that they make? That they don't put in the effort into their own multimillion-dollar game that they CLEARLY care about? That they aren't getting better with every champion that they make? Are you suggesting that Riot's employees aren't prepared for and passionate about their jobs? That Riot has no requirements hiring for their balance team? That they're too LAZY to think about their own game?! Is that what I'm getting?

OlafRagnarson2 votes

{quoted}

What, are you suggesting that they don't do the math for every single balance change that they make? That they don't put in the effort into their own multimillion-dollar game that they CLEARLY care about? That they aren't getting better with every champion that they make? Are you suggesting that Riot's employees aren't prepared for and passionate about their jobs? That Riot has no requirements hiring for their balance team? That they're too LAZY to think about their own game?! Is that what I'm getting?

That is exactly what I am suggesting. Because from players perspective, that is what we always get. Should we list examples of stupid changes Riot makes that everyone immediately knew was going to be stupid and need to be nerfed eventually?

DevilishMetal1 votes

First of all- after re-reading my post, that was SUPER aggressive, so sorry about that.

But, you mentioned player perspective- Maybe Riot looks at the game differently. And they DO. They've mentioned it before; they have a different dream for the game than we as players do. They rarely rever changes because the game HAS to move foward for them. I garen-tee that the meta will change again with the mage update, because that's how they keep the game from getting stale.

Riot makes changes because they look at the math and say, "this is the kind of value that we want people to be getting out of this item/build path/play style/abilities" and so they roll out to PBE for testing, but they don't want to revert at that point because that pretty much goes againt their whole design philosophy- keep moving foward.

So yeah, they release disaster cases sometimes, but I don't think it's because they failed to do the math.

Is that a better/less aggressive answer? :P

OlafRagnarson2 votes

{quoted}

First of all- after re-reading my post, that was SUPER aggressive, so sorry about that.

But, you mentioned player perspective- Maybe Riot looks at the game differently. And they DO. They've mentioned it before; they have a different dream for the game than we as players do. They rarely rever changes because the game HAS to move foward for them. I garen-tee that the meta will change again with the mage update, because that's how they keep the game from getting stale.

Riot makes changes because they look at the math and say, "this is the kind of value that we want people to be getting out of this item/build path/play style/abilities" and so they roll out to PBE for testing, but they don't want to revert at that point because that pretty much goes againt their whole design philosophy- keep moving foward.

So yeah, they release disaster cases sometimes, but I don't think it's because they failed to do the math.

Is that a better/less aggressive answer? :P

I think you hit the nail on the head. Riot has their own dream of how they want to game to be played, regardless of what the players, customers, want. There are lots of ways to keep the game from getting stale apart from buff champions, nerf same champion...buff them again...nerf them again...buff item..nerf same item...buff it again.

It gets old and annoying.

DevilishMetal1 votes

I get where you're coming from, but it's also worth noting that this happens because the community overreacts to... everything* that happens in patches, which results in "X OP pls nerf, now they're UP pls buff" etc. etc.

Two other points to make:

Nerfs and buffs are RARELY major or game changing at all. When someone gets buffed, a lot of people go to play them, and when a lot of people go to play them, they become "meta" and "OP" because people play them. Dealing with this kind of cycle is HARD.

Just because the math works doesn't mean it works in application. The math gor Guinsoos' worked. The math for Devourer worked. That doesn't always mean there won't be abuse cases or really, REALLY strong synergy.

OlafRagnarson2 votes

{quoted}

I get where you're coming from, but it's also worth noting that this happens because the community overreacts to... everything* that happens in patches, which results in "X OP pls nerf, now they're UP pls buff" etc. etc.

Two other points to make:

Nerfs and buffs are RARELY major or game changing at all. When someone gets buffed, a lot of people go to play them, and when a lot of people go to play them, they become "meta" and "OP" because people play them. Dealing with this kind of cycle is HARD.

Just because the math works doesn't mean it works in application. The math gor Guinsoos' worked. The math for Devourer worked. That doesn't always mean there won't be abuse cases or really, REALLY strong synergy.

I honestly don't think they have done much math and here's why:

If you take 127 champions and have each of them 1v1 every other champion...that's like 8000 or so combinations. You could run numbers and see how many combos result in a break even 1v1 fight of just autos and abilities as fast as possible at varies levels. You could then have champs that win early and lose later and visa versa. What I would hope is that many champions will break even against many champions at all levels, and that a chunk will scale harder, and a chunk will win earlier, but neither wining with a huge margin, but something significant and then a small percent that do win with big margin early and lose harder later and visa versa. And then from there on out the winners are determined more by player choice, position, itemization and counter builds than simply being an inherently better champion that does too much well and is strong at all levels.

However, I feel if this test was run, you would see a handful of champions dominate at all levels and we know who they are.

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