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CertaintlyT Champion frustration stems from their kits breaking fundamental game principles.

Ceol·7/26/2018, 10:57:25 AM·162 votes·23,345 views

Through his attempt to bring something 'new' and 'unseen' to the game, he breaks fundamental game principles. I'm not here to attack him, just to elucidate as to why people have so many issues with his champion designs.

For instance, Zoe. You might think, yeah, she picks up Summoner Spells whilst having low cost waveclear and can invariably one shot people with only a item 3285 - but that's not all. Her Summoner Spells are inherently stronger than yours. The addition of bonus damage and movement speed on her use of Summoner Spells invariably makes something that's supposed to be relatively even across champions skew towards her. Anytime you use a Summoner Spell - she punishes you for it. Something that is supposed to benefit only you becomes something that benefits her greater. I play a lot of Zoe, but she breaks the fundamental equality of Summoner Spell balance across the Champion Pool and really demonstrates how game designs have progressed - Short cooldowns, Good waveclear, Good roaming, Decent dueling (with respect to other mages) and far too many high 'highs' for how accessible they are. And no, punishing her R isn't that easy unless you're playing Lux or Camille.

TL;DR on Zoe: Her Summoner Spells are stronger than yours - Using your own Summoner Spells make her stronger. Doesn't really have punishable mana costs.

Another one, Yasuo. Yeah, I dislike his windwall, but that's not inherently what I dislike about him. If you're playing against him, you sure as hell can't sit with your wave (unless you're a strong melee/duelist) because he'll use them against you. The whole major point of counterplay to Yasuo (at least, in lane) is jungle pressure. You don't have agency yourself to really fight him, because he has enough tools (including your own wave, something that's been established to supposedly protect you --- although the occasional minion block is a hell of a way of showing it.) to out-micro your simpler/telegraphed Champion Mechanics. He doesn't have resource costs, can itemise lifesteal effectively, and doesn't receive CDR in the conventional sense - and so, has basically 100% uptime. His accessibility to farm, push the wave, duel and sustain with almost no downtime (particularly once he gets a tiny bit of attack speed) is unrivaled. I'm not saying he's impossible to deal with, but his kit doesn't seem to really be restricted in the conventional sense of other champions - and this is even being reflected in newer designs of skirmishers/bruisers/divers. Compare Camille's (she's not a CT champion, but reflective of league's shifting design as a whole) mana costs to MonkeyKing or Nocturne - they're incredibly small and she seems to get a whole lot of bonus stats - Attack Speed, True Damage, Bonus Magic Damage just for using her skills successfully - which seems like an odd bonus reward considering proper skill usage should be considered the norm, not the exception, but I digress.

TL;DR on Yasuo: Not restricted by normal means (CDs, Mana, etc.). Turns your own minion-wave against you.

Additionally, I think this concept of 'high highs' and 'low lows' is unhealthy for the game. What quantifies a 'high high'? One shotting someone? One comboing them? One shotting a team? Deleting their carries? Tanking 5 people focusing you for an incredibly long time? And what limits a 'high high'? This seemingly new-found principle of injecting and designing champion around their 'perfect moment' seems kind of misguided and I feel has led to this overall power and design creep that makes league currently feel less strategic and more dysfunctional. If Zoe's 'high high' is designed around spamming Summoner Spells in a teamfight, should she have all that power in lane, roaming or one combo-potential?

176 Comments

Teridax687/26/2018, 12:01:24 PM83 votes

A while ago, a Rioter (or possibly Scarizard once he left the team) mentioned how certain words and memes held so much power that developers were willing to commit far too heavily to the wrong direction just for it. The example in question was Blucian, a version of Lucian while he was in development where he would exclusively build mana items. The playstyle had no inherent value, and in fact was apparently quite unhealthy, but that was still a direction some Rioters pushed for, just because it sounded good.

To tie this back to the main subject, I think the same issue may be happening with CertainlyT's champions, and the whole concept of "breaking the rules". "Breaking the rules" sounds really awesome, because who doesn't want to break the rules? Screw the rules, man! That is, of course, until one realizes that the game's unwritten design rules generally exist for a reason, and that breaking them just for its own sake tends to lead to disaster. Spamming summoner spells in lane and one-shotting people in a split-second both break the rules, but do so by being hugely uninteractive and unfun to play against. Summoner spells in particular are designed to be ultra-reliable and not particularly interactive, as are many item actives, so being able to cast these with no real resource constraints, and on a relatively low cooldown, means a huge portion of Zoe's power cannot be adequately played against, particularly since it's random. Similarly, Yasuo being able to do more than everyone else with few to no limitations breaks the rules on laning interactions, and because of this has turned him into a balance monstrosity that is consistently frustrating to deal with even when he's weak. Kalista's dashes similarly break the rules, and in doing so made it practically impossible for melee champions to properly interact with her in many scenarios.

In the end though, I think the problem with these champions isn't simply that they break the rules, but that they break the rules ignorantly. I think it is okay to make a champion that goes against certain design generalities, provided they have a kit that allows for such a situation to happen in a healthy manner. A champion that is immune to slows might still be healthy if they were consistently slow and lacking in gapclosers, for example. Doing this should happen on a case-by-base basis, though, and should a) require a very complete awareness of the rules being played with, the kit's gameplay, and the impact each has upon the other, and b) an intent to generate interesting and fun gameplay, rather than simply some designer obsession with "breaking the rules". The problem with CT's kits is that they seem to fail in both of these aspects, as they generate the exact gameplay problems that the rules they break try to prevent, and often do so purely for the sake of sounding cool on paper, rather than truly generating the most enjoyment one can have.

I also agree with the criticism of CT's kits revolving around a "perfect moment". Champions like Zoe, Yasuo and Thresh are all overloaded with abilities, yet are also designed completely around one single, exceptionally punishing combo. This creates a host of problems: for one, it limits the depth these champions can have, since despite having a ton of options, and the complexity those options bring, they frequently boil down to the same, rote sequence of inputs. Second, the fact that these champions revolve around this predetermined, almost cinematic combo means seeing this combo happen over and over again becomes boring over time, which is why many people complain about "flashy LC$ plays" around these champions. Third, the manner in which these combos are implemented leaves very little room for interaction from anyone else: players on the opposing team turn into nameless, cannon fodder henchmen in an anime cutscene, and allied players turn into bystanders, with little they can do except watch, as the CT champion's combo is usually self-sufficient enough to not only CC enemies, but also kill them outright. It's not good design in a PvP game, as it strips agency from everyone else, on both teams.

Because of this, I think we need to step back and realize the inherent danger in this kind of design, and the disproportionate influence certain ideas and images can have. It's all well and good on paper to design a champion around "breaking the rules", or some fight scene where the protagonist slices down eighty-eight faceless mooks in a flashy sequence, but in practice these kinds of designs end up being shallow and limited, and very one-sided in the fun they bring to the table. These champions look and feel good on some superficial level, but only at a tremendous cost to the enjoyment and entertainment value of everyone else. It is this mode of design that I feel may have been partly responsible for a decline in competitive viewership, as champions designed in this manner tend to make games feel repetitive to watch, and lacking in diversity of high moments.

5050BS7/26/2018, 11:10:39 AM46 votes

His designed are about as good as my 10 year old boys.

World King7/26/2018, 2:56:40 PM22 votes

[deleted]

AmWhaleIRL7/26/2018, 3:14:13 PM9 votes

Was expecting a rage post, but this is actually well worded and uses very minimal biasism on your part, well done.

EyesOfTheFox7/26/2018, 3:36:40 PM9 votes

Not sure how relavent this is to the topic, but how do we all feel about the new Akali?

Seems that her updated kit also fits in the realm of unfairly breaking the game in her favor.

On a side note, if CT is still working at Riot they must think he's doing something right. Then again how much blame should be put on the balance team versus the actual designer?

It's pretty easy when designing to say, "Wouldnt [variable x] be a cool ability!?" Just to have the balance team say, "Yes it would! Let's overload it with power!" Designer, "Wait, what? Can we revisit that?" Balance team, "Too late, we're already live baby!" Designer, "People are going to hate me, thanks..." Balance team, "Any time!"

As a graphic designer that has to answer to an art director and a marketing director, sometimes (a lot of times) it's not up to me to have the final say on a design. Sometimes I have to do things the corporate machine requests. Is the blame then placed soley on me if the direction I was given misses the mark? There are plenty of times when I try to warn the machine that I think they are going about something wrong, but guess what, those people are in charge of me, they have people they answer to, and at the end of the day, I honestly have no power, so I do my best to give them what they want, whether it misses the mark or not is out of my hands. Champion designers don't care about numbers. It's up to the balance team to take that vision and make sure that it plays well with the game. Blame the people balancing the abilities, not the people that thought of said ability.

For instance new Akali being able to reset tower aggro infinitely with her new smokesceen. I'm sure the designer was like, lets make it a donought shape she can move in and out of it. Then the higher ups are like, it needs something more. Balance team, lets have it reset tower aggro whenever she moves in and out of it, so that way there's no counter play when she dives you. That's seriously how some of this shit happens. Its not just one person. Riot puts a whole team of people on a champion and each person on that team has a role to fill. A designer will never balance a champion because thats not their purpose as part of that team.

remakoro7/26/2018, 1:30:08 PM8 votes

Most of the old champions work in roles they can work. New champion being forced in roles. If they have kit that cannont work in that role they keep getting completely [edited by moderation] buffs on top of it. Bonus dmg to minions on lvl X of ability Atk speed on hittin something (cuz you cant just slap atk speed as base stat. that would be too blatant. yet its exactly how it works in reality) Grey health that allows you to ignore any poke. And so on and so on. So in the end we have champions with extremely overloarded kits just for the sake of forcing them into the role and place rito wants them to be in.

FixHealsRemoveGW7/26/2018, 3:25:02 PM3 votes

What are the fundamental game principles that these champions break?

Skullgetti7/26/2018, 11:20:37 AM1 votes

The only way to make champions fun is to give them exceptions to existing rules. Almost every single champion that wasn't made in 2008 has a "rule breaking" ability or passive. If you think his champions are so extremely broken, i doubt you've played them for more than 3 games