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Your Champion Popularity Data is Biased towards balance.

GigglesO··5 votes·956 views
Champ Popularity: Mixing Math & Art - Nexus

Lets take a look at a few things that I have issues with and how your data biased based off of balance.

If you take a look at the data it clearly has an (Un) Popularity of Monster champs... https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LOL_CMS_143_Article_04_pssoxt0n6pdln2ya2jwo.jpg But what it leaves out are some of the (popular) monsters: Maoki, Malphite, Kha,Zix, Fizz, and potentially Renekton if we consider him as a monster. So why were these guys conveniently left out of your data that "proves" monster champions are unpopular?

Looking further in depth for monster champions, are they actually unpopular, or does the balance team keep them UP, which keeps them from being popular? Lets take a look at a few champions.

First off Lets look at a few champions who's kits may have slightly changed, or experienced some nerfs/buffs. https://imgur.com/MmO2W6z Janna: Wasn't very popular, oh look enchanters are now FOTM She moves up from being unpopular to played a ton. Rammus. Was decently popular (If you look on the website thats 6.05... that line where he heads to being unpopular is 6.07 aka he go nerfed. Syndra, no real changes to her kit, but I'm pretty sure she saw some gameplay because some oppressive midlaners got nerfed.

Now for the real kick in the balls to show that you control which champ is popular at what time by how you balance the game. https://imgur.com/zfmUK3Y

With no real kit change, jayce went' from "GG trash tier" to "I'm a god" in just a few patches... So lets take a look at a few of the outliers that are "Always popular"

I'm sorry, but I have to go here, Lee Sin, and Yasuo. Why are they popular you might ask? Is it because of their looks http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/285/968/016.jpg No.

Is it because of their Balance? https://imgur.com/jKtoemR Yes, yes it is.

What if I told you having the same damage as every other champion, having lots of mobility, and having security in taking a hit or two felt really good? Why you might ask are these guys more powerful than other champs? Well its because their mobility isn't included (as much) in their power budget as other champions. Lets compare them to this poor fucker Mordekaiser.

Morde is easily kiteable, low damage when built tanky, can't get to his target easily. Yasuo and Lee are Hard to kite, both had tank builds that were quite successful at one time, and could easily get to, and damage their target. So maybe I should be asking myself, why would I play morde when there are yasuo and lee? That fact alone is exactly what happened with Jayce in the previous image. Why would you play Jayce when x y z do his job better? However, you could give Morde enough buffs that he is 100% pick or ban tomorrow and I guarantee that he will be #1 in popularity.

It may or may not be intentional balance bias, but that is what is causing popularity of champions to be where they are. You keep more popular champions popular by giving them more attention. Keeping them more relavant, which keeps them popular. Lets just admit it that there are some champions like AAtrox, Morde and crew that you just don't even care to balance or have be popular, and like old pre-rework poppy, "shes fine being gutted and if she ever sees pro play she will likely get nerfed" (not quite an exact phrase).

How about some meaningful data like buffs/winrate and popularity changes. That graph would be much more informative than the "Lee Sin is popular, and has been since release". (because we like to keep him relevant)

13 Comments

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2 votes

I'm sorry, but I have to go here, Lee Sin, and Yasuo. Why are they popular you might ask? Is it because of their looks

no... definitly not for these. Yasuo was and is trash for most of this season... But his pick and ban rate was and is always high unrelated to his powers. Their kit & design are whats make them populare.

I agree with what's u mean... just looking at sh*t as cho or RAmmus.

Teridax682 votes

That Riot post on champion popularity rubbed me the wrong way for a great deal many reasons, in part for reasons the OP brought up here. The simplistic model of "breadth versus depth" does not at all appear to take in factors like champion pricing, balance, or how enjoyable those champions are to play against. Lee Sin and Yasuo, for example, are often lots of fun to play, because they have near-complete agency, but also generally do not feel good to play against, because that agency comes at the cost of their opponents'. What worries me about this model is that it's likely pushed Riot to release a whole bunch of champions with tons of mobility and too little counterplay, and will push them to repeat these same mistakes in the future if they continue to follow this model. Factoring in ban rates, win rates, play rates, etc. would formulate a much more complete picture than just the number of games played, particularly since Riot themselves admitted that this model needed a lot more explanation and (subjective) interpretation before it could make sense.

It's also worth noting that looking closer at the graph reveals a whole bunch of outliers that kind of discredit the rest of the data: according to it, Garen is one of the best champions in the game, Karthus is one of the worst, and Blitzcrank is apparently a broader champion than Galio. Rather than show the weighted average position of these champions over time, the following graph just decided to display their collective movement over time, which just left us with a completely uninformative smear. As with many other Riot posts where they share the finer points of their design, balance and analysis methods, I really feel like the process here looks more math-y and scientific than it actually is, and relies on a whole bunch of assumptions that a) are implicitly biased, b) don't correspond to proper statistics or to other parts of Riot's design philosophy (this graph alone can't really be held as a good judge of a champion's value, for example, again because it ignores many of Riot's official design pillars), and c) mostly generate self-fulfilling prophecies rather than new information (e.g. "nobody likes monsters, so we won't put too much work into monsters"). This may explain why Riot and the players have clashed so often in how they perceive the game, and why we keep seeing designs that have consistently proven to be problematic in the past.

GigglesO2 votes

{quoted}

mostly generate self-fulfilling prophecies rather than new information (e.g. "nobody likes monsters, so we won't put too much work into monsters"). This may explain why Riot and the players have clashed so often in how they perceive the game, and why we keep seeing designs that have consistently proven to be problematic in the past.

TBH its the same argument that they used for closing dominion. Same reason they won't work on champs like Morde, aatrox....

I just really hate how much attention they pay to popular champs because they are popular. There is no reason behind it other than to keep them that way.

redniwediS1 votes

What's surprising about this exactly? There are a lot of players who prefer to play whoever is strong, rather than who they enjoy. Champion strength is just one variable that leads to the breadth score.

GigglesO2 votes

Because Riot inserts phrases like this into their analysis

"Perhaps we need to make more marksman to differentiate them further, but there is still one other theory that explains their popularity: Many marksmen are humanoid, and people apparently like playing people-y champions."

"This data isn’t the end-all be-all of how we view champions. Rather, it prompts us to ask questions to learn more about what players like: Why does Lee Sin stay popular for over a year and a half?" (lol really?)

YambrinZ1 votes

Not entirely true. Why do you think Ahri gets a skin every month? Because she is popular. AKAIK she hasnt been considered "pick or ban" for quite some time. MasterYi Also gets skins quite frequently but its been a long time since ive heard any mass uprising about must ban YI.

GigglesO1 votes

But she doesn't really seem to get pushed too far out of meta before she gets buffs, go look at poor mr rengar, he just keeps decreasing in popularity, and it isn't because of his kit...

HongChongDong1 votes

I don't know nor care about the others, but I can say that fizz isn't really a "monster" with the counterplay available to him and his anti scaling into the late game. Outside of like the wonkiest teamcomp known to man, you can't really lose to him as long as you aren't being stupid.

GigglesO1 votes

The monster comment was referring to the fact that he isn't a human, or looks kinda like a little kid such as lulu or poppy. He looks more like a monster than human.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

Your first point entirely depends if you think Malphite, Maokai, Fizz(???), Renekton and Kha'Zix are monsters. Kha'Zix, I'd probably say yes, but when it comes to the other four, Monster is not what pops into my mind for them. It also seems like when they say "Monsters" they refer to Champions who aren't as Humanoid-looking, or more animal-like

And I don't mean "Look's like a Human", but follows the same "Long legs, Long arms, short head" type thing. Kha, maybe not, but the others still follow a humanoid pattern when it comes down to it.

I also think you mixing two separate thoughts into this, especially with your last line.

Keeping them more relavant, which keeps them popular. Lets just admit it that there are some champions like AAtrox, Morde and crew that you just don't even care to balance or have be popular, and like old pre-rework poppy, "shes fine being gutted and if she ever sees pro play she will likely get nerfed"

Some champs are inherently toxic in their kits, that buffing them leads to oppressive one-sided fights. Old Aatrox was a result of stat-checking, Morde is Morde, lacking proper ways to lane against him without getting bullied (Or the opposite, Mordekaiser get's fucked and becomes absolutely useless.) Old Poppy, was a problem in so many ways, even without her ult. They are not ignored balance-wise due to being unpopular, but because if their gameplay is toxic enough that it shouldn't be popular.

Secondly, I'd just want to clarify this, but do you think that there is no correlation in Character design and Popularity, and the only reason that characters are popular are due to their balance? Because Malicious Metal alone should show how Balance doesn't mean a lot for our fascination in a champion. Yes, there will always be bandwagoners, but we like what we like for a reason.

Some people absolutely love Monster-type champions, or themes. My friend hated Dark Souls 2 (amongst other reasons) because it's enemy design was just a bunch of human/humanoids. Some people don't, it just ain't their jam. Some character designs are just innately popular too, and well known tropes in literature. A Blind Monk, dishonored Samurai, Cyborg Scientists, just how many times have we seen these character designs in alternate forms of entertainment?

While yes, popularity spikes when things become powerful, the true test of base-line popularity is when things aren't FOTM. Even Lee, who I haven't seen a complaint on the boards for a while, rests at a 22.% playrate when he barely scratches a 50% winrate. That does show just how dedicated a playerbase can be to a champion.

GigglesO1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dr Mercy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=E9LHWiwv,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-11-18T21:57:53.708+0000)

Some champs are inherently toxic in their kits, that buffing them leads to oppressive one-sided fights.

So you are saying that it is easy to outduel a good lee sin or yasuo, and by extension hyper damage hyper mobility champions in general? That also means that you don't think champions that are hyper mobile are at all in any way opressive to enemy champions that don't have these tools... Yea right...

Secondly, I'd just want to clarify this, but do you think that there is no correlation in Character design and Popularity

Yea bull shit, go look at the data, all of the consistently popular champions have extra mobility

Some people absolutely love Monster-type champions, or themes. My friend hated Dark Souls 2 (amongst other reasons) because it's enemy design was just a bunch of human/humanoids.

Yea, but balance still dictates in whether they are playable, think back two seasons when reksai and elise were popular, literally everyone played them

rests at a 22.% playrate when he barely scratches a 50% winrate. That does show just how dedicated a playerbase can be to a champion.

But thats the thing champions that are played by only OTP's should have a higher winrate. Champions that are that easily playable by the whole community shouldn't be looking at a 50% winrate because there should be bronze players that have a statistically low winrate playing him.

BloodyTompon1 votes

Yea bull shit, go look at the data, all of the consistently popular champions have extra mobility

Which is character design, no?

Champions that are that easily playable by the whole community shouldn't be looking at a 50% winrate because there should be bronze players that have a statistically low winrate playing him

This reasoning is not necessarily true. Bronze does not bring the win rate down for all champs. Consider Yi and Darius where they are much stronger in lower levels of play.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

I have several more option fighting against Yas or Lee than I ever had against Old Mordekaiser. He had the same problem that Yorick had, where if you wanted farm, you were going to pay heavily for just going near him. Simply being near the wave doesn't allow Yas or Lee to get free damage, they actually have to interact with you by getting extremely close.

Quip bout Character Design

I wasn't talking about mobility. I was talking about character themes and archetypes. The flavor of the champion. Answer the question.

Quip about Elise and Reksai

Those are bandwagoners. They'll always flock to whoever is strongest because they want to climb. You are still ignoring the mains who'll play a champion even after their time in the spotlight. A friend like DarkenedAuras is a huge Rek'sai fan, who kept playing her even after her piece by piece disassembly of power.

Quip about Lee players?

The stats I showed are from Plat+ players fam. Lee has a 49.5% winrate at 22.% popularity at Plat up. That says something about the popularity of Lee outside his own strength.

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