I am very confused by Riot's stance on randomness and removing non-skill from the game

Wasabo·Oct 1, 2014·4 votes·1,444 views

Dodge was removed, Sion's passive changed, Gangplanks ult changed. I like these changes, if both teams were dead except for 1 person on each team, something randomly happening without planning it could be the thing that determines whether you join master tier or stay in diamond (you get the point)

However, Riot hasn't removed critical chance yet and from what I've read, they haven't said too much about it either. I think it should be removed and be replaced with something that has more predictability and planning. Any ideas?

16 Comments

ZodaiOct 1, 20147 votes

Despite what everyone says, random elements do in fact have a place, even in the higher tiered, championship levels of play.

I don't feel like explaining it myself, but here's an Extra Credits video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ZI9kMsvRQ&list=UUCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg

Earl EulrichOct 1, 20143 votes

that Vid makes a lot of wrong assumptions. He uses a lot examples of RNG that is there simply because there´s no way around it due to physical limitations. In e-sports there´s a lot of RNG that is just utterly unnecessary due to the nature of the medium used.

And his poker-example also sucks...in esports you cannot play thousands of hands to even it out somehow - for a tournament there are 15-30matches at most for a team, so every single game has a very high impact. If you would want to change to numbers that make RNG seem a non-factor then you would need a year to hold a single tournament. So this is not an option - while unlike with cards, dice or even illnesses you can totally get rid of RNG in esports...there´s just no reason not to do it.

Mage Lord NelberOct 1, 20146 votes

I'm still waiting for spell critical chance to become a thing, and more spell vamp items since they refuse to nerf lifesteal as they did spell vamp; the supposed issue with spell vamp was you could heal for a ton using only 1 spell so they gave it a limit.... but i'm confused since stacking lifesteal and attacking once to heal 400-1.2k hp EVERY .5 seconds is the same thing...(no it's actually better) and they seem to be adamant on not limiting the stacking of lifesteal, where as spell vamp caps. They say it's because of Vlad and how powerful he'd become, but again... all champions that can auto attack can stack lifesteal beyond 100%... so... it's not a valid excuse tbh, and there are counters to lifesteal/spell vamp anyways so not sure why mages keep getting the boot and no skill auto attack champions keep getting more and more buffs. Right clicking has got to get boring at some point.

Another thing that doesn't make cents, is how AD champions can deal rival burst damage to mages with unique utilities, with as much range, and with less of a cooldown. Idk if you know this.... but a mage is meant to be reliant on spell/ability usage and stronger at it, so something that can auto attack for a shit load shouldn't be getting the best of both worlds or be dealing comparative damage with abilities... food for thought

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 1, 20145 votes

I want you to stop and think about the horror you just unleashed.

Vladimir crits healing him for massive amounts beyond any lifesteal/crit build. Ryze in general Azir soldiers critting through units...all three of them. Akali

I mean "spell crit" makes any burst champion run the risk of automatically 100-0 champs without much skill or thought. Although I totally agree that lifesteal and crit applying at the same time is a bit problematic.,

Earl EulrichOct 1, 20143 votes

or just imagine a Veigar R critting for 3k+

67chromeOct 2, 20142 votes

I'm still waiting for spell critical chance to become a thing, and more spell vamp items since they refuse to nerf lifesteal as they did spell vamp

Spell vamps major nerfs were that it because a unique passive so Vladimir and Jax stopped running around with 4 Gunblades, and it dealt reduced damage in an AoE - because full-clearing a 3,000 HP minion wave with one-skill is not something that should full-heal you.

Life steal in an AoE wasn't a thing when that happened. Unless you got Tiamat, which was awful.

As for stacking life steal - The Bloodthirster used to offer 25%, Zeke's Herald used to be awesome, Wriggle's Lantern used to offer life steal and be awesome, Kingblade used to offer more lifesteal, and Ex Calling used to offer life steal and be awesome.

Also, Bloodthirster's life steal didn't used to be unique.

Bloodthirster's passive is now unique, and grabbing the top 3 life-steal items involves getting Gunblade.

They say it's because of Vlad and how powerful he'd become, but again... all champions that can auto attack can stack lifesteal beyond 100%... so... it's not a valid excuse tbh, and there are counters to lifesteal/spell vamp anyways so not sure why mages keep getting the boot

Getting more than 30% life steal is a challenge within the current itemization, and doing so is exactly the same kind of build-killing idea as going for a WotA Gunblade Rageblade combo on your typical caster - you're missing out on big multipliers in IE, Statik, and Last Whisper just like your missing out on big multipliers like Void Staff, Rabadon's, Lich Bane, and DFG for AP.

Also - to benefit from life-steal you need to constantly auto-attack targets, which you can't do when stunned, suppressed, knocked-up, knocked-back, or blinded.

Now look at champions like Annie, Cassiopiea, Swain, Fiddlesticks, Kennen, Karthus, Amumu, Singed, Brand - with most casters, you deal plenty of damage while incapacitated. That damage is also front-loaded, so if you incapacitate a caster and then they QWER you, that's their 6~10 seconds of damage all circumventing that CC mattering. Where on an auto-attacker, stunning them for 1 second is 1 less second they get to life-steal with. Even if you look at the fastest-cast skills, it's increadibly hard to impact spell vamp damage with any CC unless you're targeting a Skarner or Evelynn.

Right clicking has got to get boring at some point.

Implying smashing your face on QWER is any harder.

Simplicity doesn't mean easy, if that were the case Packman and Donkey Kong would not be difficult games. With sustained damage - you have to constantly maintain solid positioning and keep track of everything going on for that 6 seconds of your payload, where a burst-caster like Darius only needs to land 1 skill and mash.

Another thing that doesn't make cents, is how AD champions can deal rival burst damage to mages with unique utilities, with as much range, and with less of a cooldown.

Mages tend to have 1100~1500 range on a lot of their damage.

Marksman are limited to ~650 range more often than not with anything that can benefit from life steal.

Also - most mages deal notably more damage, in less time, and to multiple targets than marksman. It's not exactly difficult to get 2,000 damage from your burst rotation as a typical caster at level 18, being capable of unleashing it all in 2 seconds or less - when most marksman need ~6+ seconds to match that. Additionally, marksman, unless they purchase Hurricane, are all single - target, where mages are AoE. It's not uncommon to hit 3 opponents with the bulk of a caster's combo.

Matthias9119Oct 1, 20142 votes

It's definitely discussed a lot, and on a theoretical level it seems like you could just replace it with one of:

increase total AD by X%
increase bonus AD by X%
increase physical damage by X%
increase AA damage by X%

Although it's not exactly clear how "increase crit damage %" would translate.

But (at low %s, at least) most of those are a significant buff compared to crit chance and you'd have to do a ton of rebalancing of items and abilities. And at high %s it's basically identical, at least with AAs.

Earl EulrichOct 1, 20142 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/hbEj1jWi-can-we-finally-phase-crits-rngesus-out-of-the-game, there you go.

BrickRocketOct 1, 20142 votes

They don't know how to balance adc's without crit. And until adc's get some actual itemization, they'll never be effective without it.

WorgslargOct 1, 20142 votes

Over enough attacks, a 30% crit chance( sine IE/ other modifiers) will yield a 30% damage increase. So all crit items now grant a equivalent %attack damage increase.

67chromeOct 1, 20142 votes

Any ideas?

One big main issue with replacing critical strikes is coming up with a sensible name to call the mechanic and what the mechanic should be called. Attack speed, Attack damage, Ability power, Armor, Magic resistance, Health - these are stats that are universally understood and have been around for ages in games that were around before the vast majority of LoL's player base was even born. Final Fantasy 1 has most of those, pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons has most of those.

Once you get into %attack multipliers or tertiary scalers that could take the place of critical strikes - you run into clarity issues with what exactly you're calling the stat.

If you keep the term "critical strikes", you also cause clarity issues in critical strikes not operating how they do in basically all other games, as well as just taking a massive dump on the term "critical strike". I mean - if you shoot a guy in a Critical location, you shouldn't be doing 10% more damage.

Finally - RNG runs into significantly less issues when it's applied several times. With auto-attacks: If you already need to AA someone 12 times to kill them when you can get a 1/12 crit chance, and you need to AA them at least 4 times when it's a 1/4 chance - crit isn't allowing RNGesus to skew things much.

PhoenixSlayer13Oct 1, 20141 votes

The major issue is that it's so ingrained into the entire ADC and light fighter playstyle that it's waaaaay more difficult to just straight-up remove.

The5lackerOct 1, 20141 votes

The problem is, with their current scaling system, the overabundance of armor, and the fact that most crit chance is only relevant when entirely committed to, crit chance is pretty much required for now, and isn't even a random system unless it's still in the middle of being built.

It should be removed, but that would require a DRASTIC rebalancing of just about EVERYTHING in the game. At once.

WoonStruckOct 1, 20141 votes

If there's no other random factors, crit simply needs to go. If they never removed Dodge, they could have limited both dodge and crit at 25% and it wouldn't have been toxic or unfun in the slightest, and most importantly, they would balance each other out. Obviously stats and costs would be tuned if this were to happen.

Champions like Tryn and Yasuo (Jax in the case of dodge) would have niches based on having higher-than-cap stats, helping out their hard-carry status without them needing a stupid gimmick early game to make it to mid-game, and even when that fails, oh well they still have a strong mid-game because 50% crit and plenty of attackspeed and movement speed from just Statik Shiv.

Thanotos OmegaOct 1, 20141 votes

The reason Crit isn't as quick to go as those is because those were random chance on one champion where as crit is universal, so it's not needing to know a bunch of random % chances to understand things, Basically it's because they are both random and a major burden of knowledge,

Hullabaloo907Oct 2, 20141 votes

I think the thing about crit is that it is made so you have to buy attack speed and other crit items with it. If you have one crit item, it really is not dependable. If you have two crit items and a decent attack speed, then the crit is pretty reliable. If it was a simple % damage increase that always happened on every attack, simple buying one crit item would be super effective. Every ad champ would build an infinity edge every time, because the amount of damage it would put out by itself.

Not that things like removing crit shouldnt be considered, i just think that is why they dont.