Strategy is Neither King, nor Dying

I wrote this massive thing in response to another post, but it's likely just going to get buried there, so I thought I'd give it it's own thread here, where people can more easily find it and yell at me/praise me for it. Without further adieu:

I don't think strategy doesn't exist anymore. I do think, however, it's not the only answer. I don't think that's a bad thing either, because it's making room not only for what I'll call here tactics, but more diverse strategic options that are valid across a broader array of circumstances.

The strategy of any game is a giant, fixed system. It has set imputs, levers and switches if you will, and set optimal responses to them. Once they're set, if there's nothing to disrupt them, they'll keep things going on a set trajectory. The use of champions, items and skills that allow a player's mechanical skill to disrupt strategic outcomes are what I refer to as tactics. They introduce a form of entropy into League of Legends' straegic system. Champions with targeted abilities are more strategy than they are tactics. They bring fixed values that are always present. If you bring Ryze into a lane or a fight, he will always bring what Ryze brings to a lane or a fight. There's not much variability to it, and that fact shapes the strategic consideration of the match, but not the tactical ones.

If a system relies only on strategy, once you've set a lead in it, you can comfortably steamroll with it as long as you continue to employ the correct strategies. That is to say, as long as you make no mistakes. Similarly, in such systems, you're at the mercy of the person who's ahead. If they don't make a mistake, once you're behind, you stay behind. If you've watched the LCS, you've likely heard it said that winning League is about making as few mistakes as possible. Making "big plays" a significant feature is a move disruptive of but not mutually exclusive to that. At its best and if properly balanced it can lead to a system that has more strategy and less steamrolling.

I'll use chess and fighting games as a more detailed example to break this down a bit. Chess is the classic game of strategy. It's also a fixed system. There are a finite amount of moves and strategies, and what really decides the outcome of a chess game is who maps moves better in their head. That's the background strategy that governs everything. There's no player interaction beyond that. Nothing is affected by how you move your pieces, only where you move them. Part of what this means is chess is the game with the original steamroll. Very early on, you can make a mistake that puts you strategically behind, and once you do so, unless your opponent makes a mistake that levels the field, you're playing a losing game. That's why you can forfeit. If you make a mistake in a skirmish and come out short a pawn, you can be caught in a very long game with no way to win. Grand masters recognize this and for centuries have tried pioneering new strategies. There are a finite number, though, and theoretical perfect responses to each. That's why computers can play chess better than people. They can map and track all the different moves and their outcomes, that is, chess' strategies, better than people, and with a set of logical instructions plugged in, they never make "mistakes."

Fighting games are a whole different story. A lot of people think fighting games are just button mashing. They are very, very wrong. They actually involve a lot of strategy themselves, but it's not the same sort of background, overarching strategy. Most of it's moment to moment, and for the sake of this discussion, I'll refer to this strategy, again, as tactics. Knowing whether to punch hard high or kick lightly low. Knowing if it's better to sidestep or block. Knowing when to best use your super-combo. Those are examples of the basics. To get more complex: Knowing the best response to your opponent's character throwing a projectile attack at you from the distance they're standing while taking into account the fact that your opponent will be reacting to your anticipated reaction at the same time you're making it, your opponent can be bluffed and your opponent is trying to bluff you regularly while considering the effectiveness of your tactical decision relative to your ability to see it through, reflex-wise, is a typical consideration of a given moment in high-end fighting game gaming. Your brain makes all the considerations you're aware of and processes a response in less than a second, but that doesn't mean the result is bereft of thought. Put another way, it's not button mashing. Or if you are button mashing, you're doing the equivalent of standing in lane and auto-ing minions.

Consider: Sure, the best response against that projectile might be a parry, but if your opponent is about to charge in behind it, will you be able to parry it and his attack both? In a system like this there's almost no steamrolling possible. There's momentum, but for an example of how a proper setup and plan can still go awry to tactical execution, look no further than the classic Evo Moment 37 at the end of a match between Daigo and Justin. Keep in mind as (or after) you watch that that even blocking that attack would have cost Daigo the match. The strategic equivalent of the situation, there would have been no way to prevent that outcome.

But here's the thing, in a system that uses strategy and tactics, if two people are perfectly matched tactically, the person or team with the better strategy will win. Similarly, if two people are perfectly matched strategically, the person or team with the better tactics will win. Things are rarely so perfectly balanced between two competitors, though, and so what it will really come down to is the interplay between how strategy and tactics are built into the game. Put another way: The extent to which strategy can have an effect on tactics and visa-versa depends on how well strategy and tactics are balanced against each other in the game system. If tactics barely matter in a game, then, it doesn't matter how good you are tactically if you're outmatched strategically and visa versa.

What I think Riot is trying to do right now is create a better balance between the two in the game, and to the extent that they succeed, strategy becomes arguably more important because there will be greater strategic opportunities than just waiting for your opponent to make a mistake. If you can push tactical blunders through proper strategy, you can turn a team fight, which can give your team a chance to regain its footing or even take the game. That's something that's not even a consideration in a purely strategic system. To give a simple example:

If you have trying to backdoor your base while you're trying to initiate a 5v4 team fight as , you might just take the shot to bandage in to their tank for the engage. Sure, if you wait and maneuver you may be able to get a better target. You might have had one a moment ago. You didn't take the shot because it was too uncertain, and you're hoping for something a bit more certain, but you can't risk being tied up dancing for it while Tryn can start dropping your turrets even though you have a gold and turret lead. If you land it well, you can catch at least two of them in your ult. If you don't, well... If bandage toss were a targeted click and snare, though, that decision would be much easier because the tactical consideration behind the decision and your ability to land it would be stripped away. In that scenario, the strategy of Tryn backdooring has less effect that the scenario where bandage toss is a skillshot.

So TL:DR, Riot isn't removing the strategy of the game. They're trying to balance it with tactics in a way that leaves no lane match-up feeling frustrating but can arguably provide more strategic depth. They may be overshooting. They may be making mistakes while moving the game in that direction, but I would (and do here) argue moving in that direction is not a mistake; it doesn't make thinks less cerebral; and it won't kill the game. Instead, it an effort at a type of balance that's good for the game as a whole.