Should Riot change the way they make patches?

Ellow all, my name is Rylalei, I'm a Dota 2 player that came to League of Legends a few months ago because I gave in the temptations of this little fox . So please, read all I have to say before jumping to conclusions simply because I'm a Dota player.

Now, hoping you guys understood that and started reading completely to try and understand what I am going to say, let's get started shall we? And I'm already sorry for the wall of text, but please bother to read it all, might help to make League a better game.

Now, as we know, Ghostcrawler from LoL and Icefrog from Dota balance the games in a different manner, with both having ups and downs, but overall, Icefrog does a better job at balancing the game (I'm not saying Ghostcrawler doesn't do a good job, but the reason why Icefrog does a better job is the method, which I will talk about soon). Icefrog balances Dota 2 **only around the professional scene ** while Ghostcrawler is trying to please both the pros and the forums.

A while ago, Riot released another "Ask Riot" thread, in which Ghostcrawler stated that players have a diverse champion pool from which to pick, and yes, we have a total of 132 champions (for those who own them all) and the number isn't going to slow it's growth, but, here's the problem. It doesn't matter how many champions we have if beside the free rotations (in unranked games) you see the same champions almost each game where they are not banned.

Let's make a small comparison, in Dota 2, we had The International 6 that ended last month, in August 13 and the total number of heroes picked according to this list was 104 out of 111, but during the finals, one of the heroes from the list of "unpicked heroes", namely, Jakiro got picked raising the number to 105 out of 111, which means that only 6 heroes were never picked, now, if we look at LoL's MSI, we see that the total number of champions picked is a grand total of...drums...45 out of 131 at that time, which if we do a little basic math, we see that 86 champions were never picked, that's almost double the number of champions picked.

Now, what is the definition of a "healthy game state"? A healthy game state refers to a game state (obviously) where almost any strategy and game plan has equal chances of winning when against other strategies. So, if we look at the two numbers from above, Dota 2 having 105 out of 111 heroes picked while League of Legends having only 45 out of 131 champions picked, which is more healthy? Dota 2 or League of Legends?

If you aren't biased, you will notice that Dota 2 has a more healthy game state than League of Legends, so why is that? Simple, the way two developers balance the game influence it's game state. Icefrog balances the game based only on the professional scene, with a few rare exceptions, and by rare, I do mean rare (only when a hero raises in both popularity, getting to be the most picked hero in the game and having an absurd win rate, but even then, the hero gets just some minor nerfs), so you can guess what Icefrog will do to the 6 heroes left unpicked, he will buff them while giving some nerfs to the most picked heroes.

So by balancing the game only around the professional scene, we have complaints on the forums, people (especially from the lower ranges of MMR) complaining that "OP" heroes are being buffed while useless heroes keep getting nerfed, an example being the case of Earth Spirit, one of Dota's best heroes. If he doesn't see a nerf it's a miracle, if he gets an insignifiant buff, it means someone sold his soul to the Devil, but he has a a winrate of 42.07%, so why is he getting nerfed over and over again? In ranked games, starting from the lowest of the 5k brakets and going up, his winrate is 49.84% (actually a balanced number for such a complicated hero), but, at MLD for example, he had an 86% winrate with a 97% pick/ban rate, which...doesn't seem balanced does it? If Earth Spirit would be a League champion instead of Dota hero, guess what would happen? Ghostcrawler would simply buff him even more because the forum cries the hero is too weak, which happens patch after patch in Dota. The hero is overly complicated to play, reliant on comboing his 5 skills together and doing stuff all the time, hence why pro's and high level players have a much better winrate than lower players, but lower players complain that he is weak because they can't get Rampages (Penta Kills) with him from the get go.

Now look at League of Legends, be honest this time, when's the last time you saw Corky, Cassiopeia, Oriana, Lulu, Mordekaiser and the list goes on. For me? I saw 3 Oriana, 2 Lulu and 1 Cass in the last 3 months, without a trace of Mordekaiser and Corky. On the other hand, every single game where they aren't banned, Jinx, Zed, Yasuo, Blitzcrank, Tresh, Darius and other are getting picked, while others are either on the ban or pick every 2-3 games. Why is that? Because Ghostcrawler listens to the forum as well, so he ends up nerfing champions that actually need a buff or buffing champions who need a nerf, often letting a lot of people wondering if he even thinks of the outcome of each patch. Look at the last 2 patches, Ashe, Gragas and Rek'Sai were nerfed in both, but, have you saw Corky, Mordekaiser or Lulu get some love? No, why? Noone complains about them for being too weak or too strong because almost noone plays them.

By balancing the game around the casual players and the pro players at the same time, you end up having an unhealthy game state and unhealthy meta.

Why is balancing the game only around professional players better? Because these guys, at the highest of skill, the best of the best, they know the ins and outs of the game way better than any scrub that cries on the forum that some champion is "OP". If the professional players find something to be OP, then that shit is actually OP, and if they aren't touching something, it means that that thing is crap. By making the game healthy for the professional players and making sure that any strategy is viable and has chances of success without being a 1 shot wonder, you balance the game for everyone, as all will have the same chances. Yes, there will be champions that will look really strong for Bronze and Silver players and even for low Golds, and the game will become slightly harder for newcomers, but overall, the game will become better for everyone.

You can only raise the skill level of a game by forcing the best to get better

Sorry again for the long post, all the best.

TL:DR - My oppinion is that Riot should stop balancing the game around around both professional players and casual player, and start balancing the game only around the pro scene so the game will become much healthier.

Rylalei, out