To Riot Balance And Volatility

So hey guys,

A few days ago I had just come out of classed totally stunned. On the first day of classes, I went into one of my business courses where I started an accidental conversation with my professor about League of Legends. Besides being very surprised he was familiar with Riot and feeling like most people in the class had no clue of what he was talking about when we were discussing patches, I continued the conversation asking him why he thought he's going to stay back and repel Riot from his future interests. Though I didn't understand clearly what he meant with the word "invest" he said he would hold of his resources from the company until it solidified into its userbase's historical track.

I was already a bit heated from the "spoiler" patches of 6.18, so I was very interested in why he thought it was risky business for a large scale investment. He kept on going about how volatile Riot is by patching its every so often, and not just for balance issues. He mentioned that players should have some type of solid state of the game everyone can remember to relate to. For example, if Darius is always a strong champion and can snowball nicely, let it be without it becoming abusive because everyone will remember to watch out for him instead of trying to balance him so others "have an early chance".

I went on-line and found an article from July where the Rioter said something more or less like "Every time there is a new niche, a new trend, and new way that a champion is used to win game, an new items that can be overused on an existing champion, or when we haven't touched a champion in a long time ---------- We are going to go in and do something about it. " This made me angry. Basically the author was saying that League would never come out of "df Beta "(which is fine), but Riot would always be trying to change things to keep the game relevant. I completely disagree. Yes, League is great compared to other games because it is not static and can adjust to the times and there's always something new. But I do not think that if suddenly, somehow, Varus Hybrid Jungler became a flaming carry in the next to year the developers should go in there and try to "balance", "re-balance", or "enhance" his new relevance.

I know worlds are coming around, and so the patches are made to make frequent picks are meant to bring more diversity into the tournament. However, there is a cost to this. -Loyalty. When you take somebody's champion and nerf them just so you can get operational short-term pleasures of your checklist, there is no motivation to continue playing such character or even the game. The point of games is to deal with challenges, and sometimes these challenges are to work your way around things that are over powered. Super Mario was never nerfed even though his fox tail could basically get you to all the targets easier than if you were to pick Princess.

Sure, Gnar and Sivir are commonly selected amongst competitive play and do very well. But come on...... are you really going to nerf them as much as they have appeared to be devalued in the PBE? You have continuously, for example, nerfed Sivir continuously throughout the years. Yes she is a utility carry, but that doesn't mean she should always be followed by a support to even live on . Her ult was nerfed twice, and until the second time she was barely compensated with the crits on W. Now you have lowered the damage on those crits and nerfed her ultimate for a third time. This had no compensation. Yet you plan to take Base attack damage stats down even though they're already low for a champion that doesn't do damage on her e or r. You plan to increase the cooldown on her spell shield, which is EXTREMELY long at lvl 1. You might have heard she is also getting her mana regeneration reduced? ? Like , ..... . The only reason you'd ever take Sivir into solo lane would be BECAUSE of her shield. She has a low range for a markswoman, and her mana pool couldn't be any smaller. At least buff her passive, please. This brings it to 6 nerfs and no "buffs" to the champion. Must I say more?

Toph , on the other hand, is bing misdone totally. Your first concern was that she wasn't being played enough, so you buffed her. Now this : Threaded Volley (Q) no longer deals 50% extra damage to minions. Unraveled Earth (E) trap damage lowered to 70/90/110/130/150 from 80/105/130/155/180 ? Taliyah is doing great. Let her be. She is stronger than ever. What is wrong with this? It's like taking down that A+ student form his 112% average to 97% because most of the class is at a B, and if any more extra credit is given to them to get them closer to a B+ , the A+ student is just going to surf through the rest of the end of the year so you want to keep her at max 100%. Let her get to that 115. No one is harmed. They highest she is going to get is an A+ anyway.

He reigns from the swords and annoys the world over, Yasuo. Yes he can snowball or feed, he is bothersome. Do not even get me started on .

It is not fair to mess with champion because of there good performance. After all, you guys are the ones which have led all patches so we play with what you give us. If something is being undone, redone, undone, then redone again who's fault is that?
The players? For taking advantage and outusing what they were given? No.

In the future, it is also not fair if you take new outstanding outliers (say, Nami in the jungle?) from new places players have taken them and try to change them into something that they've never been identified with. You Have to let the characters start developing some kind of permanent identity. (please let her us her w on minions, or how do you want her to be a secondary mid caster?) Yes, tweak what needs to be done in items and timers and effects, but when are we going to get some stability. If you can not do that, then, at least recompense for the things you lower by adding somewhere else. (AKA accounting responsibly)

Whether or not the changes in the PBE go live in future patches, please consider that NOT SINGLE champion is "unbeatable" AS OF NOW. That is thanks to you all, making the necessary adjustments. Having said that - you should take more pride in your work and not let something/someone else convince you that you did a sloppy job in previous patches with balancing champions, you didn't. But I hope you see how there is this circle being created were it's just going to go over and over until you realize that you have to STOP the HARSHLY IMPACTFUL CHANGES which are only going to lead to more and more changes in the future because you'll always be caught up trying to fix things from before. It is just not healthy for the organization to get into a habit of HAMtweaking characters every round for worlds. Find other ways to incorporate diversity, mmm, maybe having a blind 7th&8th bann after everyone has locked in through rerolls in competitive play.

League of Legends is different from other games. You already excel at what makes it different to them. Now you have to excel at what makes it common to other games, because, that's where we all came from as gamers.

For those reading this post, please comment on your thoughts. If I ever see this new prof. playing league, i swear, Im going to ACE the class. XD However, I have to go to my next class now so I just wanted to share that Riot is growing and more non gamers are aware of it's awesome existence. Later!

P.S. Friday classes reek. XD