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Riot is emphasizing too much on counterplay in champion design these days

notice me Sin pi··18 votes·1,839 views

"omg Nami W and E is a point-and-click soo fking unbalanced $@!% gut this champ to oblivion" -said no one ever. "fking jhin Q and 4th aa how am i even supposed to dodge that point-and-click?? 0 counterplay no skill champ rito fix this sh**" -said no one ever. "the most overpowered thing about ahri is her W and R because unlike her Q and E, it is auto-targetted ability and u cant even dodge it no matter how good u r" -said no one ever

They are not negated completely even if misused unless yasuo pops up windwall. They are guarenteed a minimal amount of contribution even when used in un-optimal situations. On the other side, the minimal contribution takes up enough of power budget that optimal use isnt game-breaking either.

It's not coincidence that win rate for nami, jhin and ahri do not fluctuate heavily from one elo to another elo, fluctuating only within 2% excluding master and challenger where a single 1-trick player can make data unreliable. Just having partial counter play can be good enough. It's not a coincidence that your RitoData™ indicated that ahri didnt need nerf for months. It's not completely a coincidence that nami did not need any buffs or nerfs since patch 4.13 aside from LC$ buffs, bug fixes, and champion roaster-wide stat changes, and still does not need any real buffs/nerfs to this date. They are still considered healthy in general.

Just my thoughts after seeing Riot's trend on emphasis on counterplay these days.

EDIT: geez what's up with all the people that dont even read the post and comment nonsense s**t

32 Comments

sennamen8 votes

How is this a problem or concern though...

notice me Sin pi7 votes

if rito keeps up this trend, then due to the huge difference between fail/success cases, we might end up getting unbalanceable champions like Azir Ryze Yasuo to be very extreme. So it is a concern regarding riot's trend so far. It's either break the champion to balance it or make it useless to not break the game if trend continues too far. And it's already a problem depending on what you believe is the acceptable difference between fail/success cases.

Teridax687 votes

Except the problem with literally all three champions you mentioned here is that they have little to no counterplay when played close to perfectly. By contrast, Sion, the poster boy for champions with excessive counterplay, has a pretty consistent win rate, going from about 53% in Bronze to around 50% in Diamond. I agree that making a champion with too much counterplay can be bad, as they end up with too little agency, but I don't think its impact across elos is all that much of an issue in itself.

Jbels4 votes

I think the problem is that Riot is so scared of creating more balance issues that they try to make something as fair to play against as possible. Look at Urgot, he definitely has strengths out the ass. If you let him do his thing he will kill you. That's how it should be. This is one good example of champion fairness, as he does jack shit when he can't get on you.

Now lets look at Ornn. I've heard complaints that it feels almost impossible to line up a Q into E knockup that actually hits somebody. Now, he did just come out, but I have a suspicion that Riot purposefully low-balled it so that consideration to Ornn would not have to be given for the World's balance patch. If he's weak, he won't be getting changes until 7.19

notice me Sin pi3 votes

I feel like urgot still has a problem: his ult. There is just soo much power budget on his 2nd ult cast and too little power on 1st ult cast; rito can take out some power budget from his 2nd ult by reducing the fear duration and instead put that power budget into his 1st ult cast to make it feel more like an ultimate ability. Other than that, i think his design is perfect.

On the other side, i agree with you 100% on Ornn's state. The difference between fail/success is just way too high, and that's basically how we end up with unbalanceable champions like Ryze Azir to be very extreme

Jbels1 votes

[{quoted}](name=notice me Sin pi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IXJNWGIa,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-08-26T21:41:48.843+0000)

I feel like urgot still has a problem: his ult. There is just soo much power budget on his 2nd ult cast and too little power on 1st ult cast; rito can take out some power budget from his 2nd ult by reducing the fear duration and instead put that power budget into his 1st ult cast to make it feel more like an ultimate ability. Other than that, i think his design is perfect.

On the other side, i agree with you 100% on Ornn's state. The difference between fail/success is just way too high, and that's basically how we end up with unbalanceable champions like Ryze Azir to be very extreme

I do hate how little damage the first cast of his ult does, but Urgod damn does it feel satisfying to pull somebody in for a kill

ModWulf Helhammer3 votes

I mean back when Ahri was the FoTM complaint champion, people did talk about how easy it was to get off her damage because half of it was auto targeted. That's why Riot took damage out of W and put it into her E

notice me Sin pi1 votes

the numbers were definitely out of place when she was FoTM, but after the numbers were tweaked, the design turned out to be very good tho. Riot needs to do some more changes on recent champions similar to what they did with ahri back then.

Spicy Rice1 votes

Thing is, Ahri is an example of an easy case to balance.

Now, let's say Annie became fotm/op for whatever reason. They can't just move her damage around, as her pattern comes from stunning, and then dumping everything on someone. Riot would have to give her more counterplay, or dumpster her damage.

notice me Sin pi1 votes

that just means the champion design itself was bad and she needs to be reworked at some point, if changing numbers cant make her actually healthy

cocacolalips3 votes

If Riot didn't spend the past 3-4 years improving on the gameplay, LoL would have died, like every other game out there with a life expectancy of 2-3 years max. Remember old Sion/Taric? That sh!t was awful, no one has time for old shitty games with old shitty gameplay, and everyone would have moved on to the next big thing with better controls/mechanics.

Props to Riot for stepping up and making the game a lot better each year.

CasterGilgamesh2 votes

i agree with your statement but honestly some times there is just "Too much counter play"

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

If Riot didn't spend the past 3-4 years improving on the gameplay, LoL would have died, like every other game out there with a life expectancy of 2-3 years max. Remember old Sion/Taric? That sh!t was awful, no one has time for old shitty games with old shitty gameplay, and everyone would have moved on to the next big thing with better controls/mechanics.

Props to Riot for stepping up and making the game a lot better each year.

That's not true at all. LoL used to be a beloved game which almost everyone could agree was THE best way to waste away your time in order to have fun and relax. However, the emphasis on the competitive side of this game has pretty much ruined it except for the elitists.

EVERYONE has time for older games with unique items and wacky champs. They'd much rather that than this money-whore garbage run by a company who's backed by a Chinese corporate giant. Let's be real here, Riot doesn't pour their heart and soul into this game anymore, they simply tweak some numbers according to stats. and they release more skins to fill their pockets even more.

cocacolalips1 votes

  1. you replied to a 4 months old comment

  2. league of legends is a lot more popular that is has ever been, as a result of being a much better game than is has ever been. not sure where you got all those negative assumptions from, but you are wrong about pretty much everything.

  3. while we are here, you might wanna check the new event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRq2WgdpncA all the event game modes have pretty litt for the past year.

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

  1. you replied to a 4 months old comment

  2. league of legends is a lot more popular that is has ever been, as a result of being a much better game than is has ever been. not sure where you got all those negative assumptions from, but you are wrong about pretty much everything.

  3. while we are here, you might wanna check the new event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRq2WgdpncA all the event game modes have pretty litt for the past year.

"all the event gamemodes have been pretty lit for the past year"

Not at all and NONE of them have been permanent like y'know.....URF mode, which most people can agree would be amazing if it was permanent. As for the new event it's a joke. They gave us URF mode and yet it's random again AND we're limited in champs......that's not good at all.

LoL is only more popular because it's a mainstream game. Sure, people have fun in their early levels but once they hit 30 the game starts to lose its appeal.

cocacolalips1 votes

Dark Star singularity, Star Guardian invasion and Overcharge were all made this year and are amazing, with some unique visual assets and unique gameplay.

URF has a plethora of issues and is simply not a good game mode, which Riot has been trying to fix with ARUF and other alteratives. Trust me, you would get really sick of URF really fast if it was permanent, having to play with and against the same 5 op champions every single game and the game mode would die faster than dominion did back then.

I've been playing since season 1-2 and I'm having a lot of fun (I did quit around season 3 and only came back because riot improved the game and the gameplay, playing against the likes of old Sion, Taric, Leblanc, Rengar, Talon etc.. with their point and click CC-one shots spam was pure cancer, thank god it's gone) and clearly so do the other 100 millions unique monthly players, if you don't have fun, that's too bad, simply don't think you are speaking for everyone hah.

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

Dark Star singularity, Star Guardian invasion and Overcharge were all made this year and are amazing, with some unique visual assets and unique gameplay.

URF has a plethora of issues and is simply not a good game mode, which Riot has been trying to fix with ARUF and other alteratives. Trust me, you would get really sick of URF really fast if it was permanent, having to play with and against the same 5 op champions every single game and the game mode would die faster than dominion did back then.

I've been playing since season 1-2 and I'm having a lot of fun (I did quit around season 3 and only came back because riot improved the game and the gameplay, playing against the likes of old Sion, Taric, Leblanc, Rengar, Talon etc.. with their point and click CC-one shots spam was pure cancer, thank god it's gone) and clearly so do the other 100 millions unique monthly players, if you don't have fun, that's too bad, simply don't think you are speaking for everyone hah.

I am speaking for everyone because if you ask anyone who plays LoL who has ever played URF, lo and behold, they love it.

Dark Star Singularity was a gimmick gamemode that simply wasn't fun, Star Guardian Invasion just felt like a watered down version of Co-op vs AI and Overcharge wasn't fun at all due to lack of champions and lack of overall thought gone into balancing it.

You say URF isn't a good gamemode and yet here you are preaching about the other rotating gamemodes which are balanced in an even worse manner than URF. Additionally, I don't think URF would be a problem if it was permanent for CUSTOM GAMES. That way friend groups can arrange how the game will be played such as stating which champions are not allowed and whatnot. That is the fix for it. Riot is trying too hard to balance it to be a competitive gamemode when in actual fact URF mode's appeal comes from how casual it is. If the competitive side where only 10-20 champions are picked for it cause they're OP is the problem then just let it be limited to custom gamemodes. Boom! There's that problem gone.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

cocacolalips1 votes

seems to me you simply don't like games, maybe you are too old for that stuff, it happens, maybe it's time for you to find a new hobby.

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

seems to me you simply don't like games, maybe you are too old for that stuff, it happens, maybe it's time for you to find a new hobby.

Wait what? How did you come to that conclusion?

I'm simply saying that LoL is stale considering it only has one gamemode outside of ARAM which is still the same thing.

I never stated whether or not I liked other games....I think this is just you trying to say "fuck off", to which I say, no thank you, I enjoy playing games.

AFilthyCaitMain2 votes

This is why illaoi falters.

Spicy Rice1 votes

Maybe in 1v1 situations, but overall, I think she does fine. She is able to contribute to her team using e to get some free damage, and q to herd the enemy team, and her ult is a huge "don't step in here zone" which she can use to either massacre a team, or split a team away from its divers.

Overall, a good component to a team, if used properly

Chaos Milk Tea2 votes

Jhin is fairly new. I think there is a healthy mix of both types of champions.

Now to be clear on why riot prefers built in counterplay, it is because fully reliable champions have fewer power spikes during micro gameplay, and thus tend to have extremely binary gameplay of stomp or get stomped. See xinzhao and other auto spam champions who are either surviving through insane dps, or not surviving at all.

Clearly there is a sweet spot to hit in between.

notice me Sin pi3 votes

jhin was out more than a year ago, so i dont really see him anywhere near new. But then rito did slow down on champion releases so it might be new depending on whether you look at time passed since release or number of released champions afterward.

I think time is more appropriate measure tho, because it would be more accurate to say that riot's philosophy changes with time rather than with champions released.

Giggling Granny2 votes

Yeah guys all champions should be XinZhao Jax MasterYi Garen Pantheon Nunu Teemo Tryndamere

I wonder why riot try to make the game so champions can have counterplay..XinZhao Jax MasterYi Garen Pantheon Nunu Teemo Tryndamere i wonder why...XinZhao Jax MasterYi Garen Pantheon Nunu Teemo Tryndamere it must be a reason but i cant see it...XinZhao Jax MasterYi Garen Pantheon Nunu Teemo Tryndamere can you people see it? XinZhao Jax MasterYi Garen Pantheon Nunu Teemo Tryndamere

Now if you want to have champions that are easy mode like the one i mention which pretty much ether toxic or unfun or unbalanced just because you cant know how to aim then dont play league...riot has this champions that nobody like and everyone is like "when riot is gonna put some skill on this champions" we already have enough with champions with 0 counter play that the only thing you can do is to have enough CC to kill one target because what the outplay of someone who press right click? so much skill huh?

notice me Sin pi1 votes

Nami W&E, Jhin Q, Ahri W&R are not completely stat-checkers. There still exists a fail/success condition where fail condition still does something even if it's not optimal, and success condition is allowed to be gated by the fail condition, which keeps their win rates consistent across all elos to within 2% difference. To add on to it, Fiddlesticks is also a champ that i'd say is healthy according to what im saying. 2 of his skills are point-and-clicks that are guarenteed to do some minimal contribution no matter how retarded the player is, and yet they provide some sort of partial counterplay as well to prevent him from doing too much as well. His win rate difference between bronze and diamond is also within 2% difference.

On the other side, the champions you listed are mostly complete stat checker zero skill with no fail/success cases, and those lead to highly varying win rate across different elos, so it invalidates your argument.

DaNinad1 votes

3 skills are point and click right?

notice me Sin pi1 votes

either way, u probably get the point im trying to make: leaving enough counterplay for expression of skill but also allowing minimal amount of contribution that is not zero to a team even if played by a retard.

AirKingNeo1 votes

I agree. Champions need at least some form of reliability. No champion should be extremely difficult and be rewarded with high damage because, as we've seen before, tend to be unbalanced.

DISHONORABLE XD1 votes

COUNTERYPLAY IS AN EXPRESSION OF SKILL , GOOD JOB RIOT DONT LISTEN TO NA LOW ELOS

notice me Sin pi1 votes

says the EUW player just know that more than 95% of the LoL playerbase consists of bronze, silver, and gold. They do need to listen to low elos regardless of region to some degree if they want the low elo to buy skins for $$ and not quit the game.

Besides, you need to actually read the post. There is huge difference between [partial counterplay that still leaves some room for expression of skill] like Jhin and a [zero counterplay stat-checking that leaves no room for skill expression] like Garen .

Acheron161 votes

They make that so they can design new mechanics and high-impact abilities.

If they can miss they instantly get a bigger power budget that can be applied to damage, effects' power and duration.

If Ornn's ultimate was, say, a point and click ability it would have to be much, much weaker.

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