why do people expect champion diversity at worlds?

rtbf76109271·Oct 2, 2016·32 votes·3,218 views

The top 18 - 20 champions will be played / banned literally no matter what. Even if the next best champions are just 1% worse in win rate, they won't get picked. They are using exclusively the strongest possible compositions and champions for the best chance to win. The same thing happens in card games, where no matter how close to the tier 1 cards the tier 2 are, they do not get played in tournaments unless the format forces it

It's not possible in practice to have every champions so equally strong that the worlds champion pool is even somewhat diverse. Unless for each role every champions kit was extremely bland or similar, meaning they can just put the same stats on everyone

60 Comments

Nameless VoiceOct 2, 201626 votes

I don't know about expect, but people want it because it would be much more interesting to watch.

I'd rather see a professional player have a small number of champions that they love to play, and to always play those, rather than everyone on every team always gravitating towards the same champions. Is balance like that possible? Maybe not, but it's still what a lot of people would prefer to see.

(The same applies to actually playing the game, too.)

R FLASH XDOct 2, 201614 votes

Cause that's what a balanced game has

rtbf76109271Oct 3, 20164 votes

It's really not. I can't speak for dota but in all of csgo, sc2, and hearthstone there is a meta with the best strategies, builds and reactions to those builds and thats it. Anything else only is done to take people off guard and "should" lose with the proper reaction, which is why it isnt done.

For example lets say we have 2 sets of 5 champions for a given role with a score out of 10.

Less balanced Set 1: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

More balanced set: 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, 9

In each scenario the pro player choses champion with the score of 9. It is unrealistic to the point of being impossible to have all champions at a score of 9.

However in solo queue for the vast majority of players, it doesnt matter who you pick because no one is playing even close to the maximum potential that a champion has. So their own mistakes overshadow the rating

WoonStruckOct 4, 20161 votes

CS:GO has literally 3 weapons that are used. Knife, AK47, M1A1.

They don't actually balance their game or the other weapons would function better than the aforementioned ones at SOMETHING.

"But SNIPER"...yeah, no...they just use the first shot of the AK47, which is effectively '100% accuracy'. M1 A1 is slightly off, but the same location every time for the first bullet.

Shit like that.

You can be point blank, blasting someone with an SMG and miss them 75% of the time if you don't know the bullet spread and how to abuse it...in which case AK47 and M1A1 are better. Or you could just knife. Further away? Favors SMG even less.

SC2 has a shitty balance base to work with. It was made for viewership, not decent balance. Every little tweak they make changes the meta in all match-ups. That's a sign of bad balance. There are still units that are borderline unusable. That includes almost any unit that isn't T1.5 or lower for Terran, especially after starport nerfs.

GULAG 4 UOct 2, 20165 votes

What about Dota2?

FaieOct 2, 20162 votes

Dota2 is exclusively balanced for Pro play, which allows such diversity as it does. On the other hand, you have heroes running around with 60%+ winrates in solo play, and that's considered normal. Consider that unless it's an extreme outlier, in League, no champion has a general winrate of over 55%.

GULAG 4 UOct 2, 20162 votes

That's my point

flibitydooOct 2, 20161 votes

dota 2 has a ton of hard counters hero wise (but the the large amount of active items helps to alleviate that). Which is a design philosphy that Riot has been avoiding (they want you to be able to beat any champ with any champ and for everything to be a skill matchup, aka "everything is a skillshot/3-hit passive").

also sometimes there are some picks in Dota that just get plain ignored. Illusion heroes for example, there's always "the best one" and the rest get ignored. Sometimes it's phantom lancer, sometimes it's naga siren, sometimes it's terrorblade, etc.

CatastropOct 3, 20163 votes

DotA2 does not have scaling the way League does, it's all item actives and what a hero can do, so it's much easier to have diversity in that game because every hero can potentially be just as strong as the next one.

chipndip1Oct 2, 20165 votes

Game's balanced for three types of people at once. Riot's gotta narrow their balance team's focus if they want to improve competitive.

manbearswineOct 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Game's balanced for three types of people at once. Riot's gotta narrow their balance team's focus if they want to improve competitive.

"balanced" Aside from that I agree.

Zane ZephyrOct 2, 20165 votes

I don't think any one ever actually expects it, moreso that we hope for it because it would be refreshing to see champs that don't see the sunlight (looking at you, Diana ).

I just think it would be pretty funny and awesome to see someone like MasterYi or Volibear get picked, even though it's impractical and most likely wouldn't end well unless they played it perfectly.

ChargeItDownMidOct 3, 20165 votes

[deleted]

MokkunOct 3, 20164 votes

{quoted}

Because they just got done watching the international which proved a moba can properly balance 100+ champions when it has a competent balance team.

Dota is not properly balanced. As was pointed out by an earlier poster, the win rates on some heroes in Dota in solo queue is absurd. A balance set to the level of .001% of your player base is a giant "fuck you" to everyone else.

The fact is that if LoL was balanced to allow 100 champions to be viable in pro play, the damage it would do to solo queue balance would kill the game. We don't have the elitist jerk player base that wants to be fucked the way Dota does. Dota's players are like the marines. Part of the fun is in community masochism because it makes you feel superior to everyone else.

LeetriOct 3, 20162 votes

It has little to do with balance and more with how the games are fundamentally designed. Dota 2 heroes are designed to fulfil a single niche and do that one thing very well. League champions are made to be good in more than 1 situation. The only way for League to get Dota pick rates would be to rework all champions so they become niche picks. As others have pointed out, Dota 2 is also only balanced around pro play while League is balanced around pro and regular play. I personally don't want Garen to be viable in Worlds and sit at 65% winrate everywhere else.

MonkeyMadnessOct 2, 20164 votes

The problem is that people want this game to be DotA2, where every hero has been picked in professional play due to the very specific counterpicking-centric game that DotA caters to. Unfortunately, these people don't understand that this is a completely different game that relies more on team synergy than enemy counters, and therefore will cater to a smaller pool of "flavor of the month" champs.

TeemoXNidaleeOct 2, 20163 votes

It's not only because of hard counters, Dota heroes are much more unique and each fill a specific niche. Lol champions are a lot more generic, so only the best ones are going to be picked.

manbearswineOct 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

The problem is that people want this game to be DotA2, where every hero has been picked in professional play due to the very specific counterpicking-centric game that DotA caters to. Unfortunately, these people don't understand that this is a completely different game that relies more on team synergy than enemy counters, and therefore will cater to a smaller pool of "flavor of the month" champs.

No, dota just balances around competitive play, lol balances around plat winrates.

MonkeyMadnessOct 3, 20161 votes

???

They just had a patch STRICTLY for pro play...shen's damage got nerfed. Rek'sai tunnel cd got nerfed. And literally every other change in that patch was geared toward pro play. League is simply not the same game. It much less counter-pick-centric than DotA, and therefore there will be more defined tiers.

manbearswineOct 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

???

They just had a patch STRICTLY for pro play...shen's damage got nerfed. Rek'sai tunnel cd got nerfed. And literally every other change in that patch was geared toward pro play.

OH WOW, ONE WHOLE FUCKING PATCH. HOLY SHIT MAN, HOLY SHIT! One whole fucking patch where they addressed some outliers from the op spectrum to some extent, just fucking amazing, how about undoing all the nerfs then turning them into buffs to all these champions who were nerfed even though they had a weak/no competitive presence?

Over the years they are what now? 60%-70% of the champion pool?

League is simply not the same game. It much less counter-pick-centric than DotA, and therefore there will be more defined tiers.

League has less depth than dota because we won't allow it, because the moment something requires people to play differently it's winrate goes high and it get's nerfed even if it sees 0 competitive play.

No, this is balancing, pure and simple.

MonkeyMadnessOct 3, 20162 votes

League has less depth than dota because we won't allow it, because the moment something requires people to play differently it's winrate goes high and it get's nerfed even if it sees 0 competitive play.

I really don't understand statements like this. League doesn't have less depth, it has different depth. League is focused around a different strategic style than DotA. That's really all there is to it. To say one is more or less, or better or worse is just a superiority complex. That's what I'm trying to say here. Just because champion diversity at the pro level is less than in DotA doesn't make LoL any less of a game, as some would suggest.

manbearswineOct 3, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I really don't understand statements like this. League doesn't have less depth, it has different depth. League is focused around a different strategic style than DotA. That's really all there is to it. To say one is more or less, or better or worse is just a superiority complex. That's what I'm trying to say here. Just because champion diversity at the pro level is less than in DotA doesn't make LoL any less of a game, as some would suggest.

It's like saying hots doesn't have less depth than lol. Having less depth doesn't make it a worse game, it's not inherently a flaw, the fact lol is less punishing and demanding has a lot to do with why it's more successful than dota, but you can't have your cake and eat it too, lol has a lot less depth than dota, part of it was just thrown away, other parts trimmed down because people had less interest in them, others were traded for the game to be more accessible to people who don't want to invest as much to get in to it, but this denial is just bad.

Take voice come for example, it clearly adds depth to game, it clearly gives you a better opportunity at making things happen which are really interesting and add depth to the game, yet people oppose it and it doesn't happen over fear of toxicity(which has some merit to it), this illustrates perfectly the difference in approach both games have. Naturally it's only an example, you see this in balancing, in dota to get nerfed you need to be an issue in competitive(aside from some extreme outliers where there's like maybe one per patch, which happen every few months), in lol if you go through patch notes at least half of the nerfs per patch are aimed at winrates, in dota if a hero sees very little competitive play you can basically be certain it'll get buffed next patch, in lol that's only the case if his winrate is low(well not next patch, but lol's patches are more frequent so in the same time window). Riot also pretty much enforces the 1:1:2+1 in the jungle meta, in dota if the meta is set on a certain setup that setup gets nerfed one way or another, riot wants and keeps the game this way.

Both lol and dota give things up for their current state of things, in dota you have omni knight(for example) sitting on a ~60% winrate for I don't even remember how long(and other things), in lol they sacrifice the competitive scene and game depth for winrates not to deviate much from 50%.

I know that denial is hyper meta on these boards, but for fucks sake this is right in front of you, you'd have to be completely blind not to see it, you'd have to want to not see it.

dEAdbUsOct 3, 20164 votes

It's possible to practice every champion because DOTA's pros doing it. DOTA has much bigger pickrate pool. Otherwise LoL's pros are unskilled :P

Imho Riot Games is failing balance every year. I always give a second chance, but 6th failed season... But you know what? They getting more money with every year, that's their target, not balance. So Riot Games is very succesful.

AazzlanoOct 3, 20163 votes

This isn't really that accurate. Some champions are just better than others. This doesn't just apply to professional play.

The problem is that there are a lot of generalist picks which are also extremely strong in all areas. While a lot of champions are very strong in specific situations or comps, they are completely blown out of the water by overpowered generalist picks who can do their job almost as well, but are well rounded enough to do everyone elses job almost as well at the same time. Thus you get a super adaptive champion who is good at everything and can do many jobs at once instead of being a specialist who does one job but only slightly better than the generalist.

This is one reason people complain about mobile champions. A lot of mobile champions don't give up that much for the fact that they are mobile. They still can do most of what (and some can do just as much, or more than) other champions that are immobile while having the ability to zone and escape/position much easier. The trade off for being mobile on some champions is just not there. And likewise for some generalist picks, they don't have significant trade offs for being able to do everything or multiple things very well.

Your comparison to card games would be valid if it were true. There aren't "tier 1 cards", there are only "tier 1 decks". There are also cards which aren't used in anything which may pop up at some point and can win tournaments. They could be a bad card but that might have just been a good fit that particular tournament. Decks are constructed with synergy, not just power level.

Lordk0zOct 3, 20163 votes

The only Hero at 60% is Omniknight, who is followed by Abaddon and Wraith King (at a whopping 56%). All three have powerful defensive abilities. in a genre where every goddamn person is an idiot who goes all-in at the slightest hint of a chance, barely ever considering the enemy hero. Of course, if you make someone whose good at making over-aggressive/greedy players die, they're going to be OP since literally 90% of the playerbase is overaggressive and greedy.

The next one is Elder Titan. Whose winrate is really high in sub-2k (Trash) MMR.............because he's a complicated Hero with mechanics that, at that low level, basically no one except his players has a clue how they work. None of them have blatantly over-loaded abilities like the ability to do 3k damage just by pressing R in a massive cone couf MissFortune couf

Spaceman5pffOct 3, 20163 votes

I expect good champion diversity at Worlds because I know it is possible.

Just look at Dota2

GlaedrOct 4, 20161 votes

Yeah tell me about the winrates for the standard playerbase as compared to competitive

Spaceman5pffOct 4, 20161 votes

Here is what I think: 1- The game has a solid, consistent playerbase. 2- The game has a very healthy (and arguably one of the best) competitive scene

Let's break down 2: A- Character diversity B- Better pay for player C- Better management of patch timing around tournaments D- more diverse competitive meta game (more laning setups)

XxxLumberJackxxXOct 3, 20163 votes

brah we are getting nocturne and skarner jungles. We good

General Esdeath Oct 2, 20162 votes

Not even that, some champs are GARBAGE in LCS but great in solo queue and vice versa.

Nasus Udyr Tryndamere are low tier in LCS because they need to farm and split, and an LCS team won't fall for that trick. But they do great in solo queue because teams don't have a single shotcaller and often conflict on what they think is a good plan.

Maokai was great because he was a counter to tank Ekko and LCS teams could utilize his ult properly. TwistedFate is another good one because they can coordinate roams better.

Swiftstrike4Oct 3, 20162 votes

The champions that are picked are usually just high mobility champions, with right the exception being Syndra this worlds.

It is pretty boring seeing Rumble almost every game if he isn't banned.

MunchCrunchLunchOct 2, 20161 votes

the part about practicing. is wrong. almost everyone. in worlds. the big pro players. main. other champions. and play other champions. in solo queue ranked challenger. also have played other champions. from season 1 to season 3 in pro play. but riot kind of fucked up the balance of the game since season 4. i haven't played the game for long but thats what i have learned from people and al ot of things i've read/watched

wiggywonkaOct 3, 20163 votes

ur wrong go back to minecraft

MunchCrunchLunchOct 3, 20161 votes

never played that game in my life

The Yetii RiderOct 3, 20161 votes

I don't know about "diversity", but when Riot goes out of their way to nerf Rek'Sai in two different patches saying they don't want to see her at Worlds so much I expect people to not ban her. Look at Shen.

agbudarOct 3, 20161 votes

in a perfect world where each piece(champion) has its place they can end up being played.

JuiceNJewsOct 3, 20161 votes

I don't expect diversity, but it would be nice if the most contested champs were tweaked or nerfed in such a way that it would allow for other champions to become contested. That way looking at LCS wouldn't feel like such a rinse repeat experience (my personal reason for not watching it anymore).

Lordk0zOct 4, 20161 votes

Denial is the meta.

Yet you can't deny because it's too complicated

LOGIC FOLKS

{quoted}

in a perfect world where each piece(champion) except Teemo has its place they can end up being played.

Fixed

Arcus DiabolusOct 4, 20161 votes

I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the fact that Blazblue is so balanced that the bottom tier characters are still fairly close in power to the higher tier badasses. I mean, if I can take my B tier Noel and win against S tier Valkenhayn or A+ tier Azrael, I can safely assume its less about the character and more about how good you are with them.

My point is that is what a balanced game should always look like. If you can't take a "weaker" champ into a game on the grounds they don't have the stats required to keep up no matter how good you are, then this game simply is not balanced. Yea, you'd want to maximize your effectiveness and efficiency by picking a better character, but it should never matter THAT MUCH.

Lordk0zOct 4, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arcus Diabolus,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=L4hWPOoB,comment-id=0019,timestamp=2016-10-04T01:31:15.771+0000)

I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the fact that Blazblue is so balanced that the bottom tier characters are still fairly close in power to the higher tier badasses. I mean, if I can take my B tier Noel and win against S tier Valkenhayn or A+ tier Azrael, I can safely assume its less about the character and more about how good you are with them.

My point is that is what a balanced game should always look like. If you can't take a "weaker" champ into a game on the grounds they don't have the stats required to keep up no matter how good you are, then this game simply is not balanced. Yea, you'd want to maximize your effectiveness and efficiency by picking a better character, but it should never matter THAT MUCH.

And yet the best Tager player in the world left because he was tired of Tager, already a low ranked character, was still getting nerfed. Real Soviet Facts.

Arcus DiabolusOct 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

And yet the best Tager player in the world left because he was tired of Tager, already a low ranked character, was still getting nerfed. Real Soviet Facts.

Ehh, Tager is still pretty alright. He does have his downsides, but that comes with his overall design more than anything. Having that much larger of a hitbox without being able to move around quickly at all (besides directly toward your opponent on the ground) already kinda hampers him. In terms of his sheer power once he gets a hold of you and the fact that I can't get near a Tager as Noel without getting punished despite me being able to kick the shit out of the higher tier characters means Tager isn't dead yet.

Lordk0zOct 4, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arcus Diabolus,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=L4hWPOoB,comment-id=001900000000,timestamp=2016-10-04T02:54:14.855+0000)

Ehh, Tager is still pretty alright. He does have his downsides, but that comes with his overall design more than anything. Having that much larger of a hitbox without being able to move around quickly at all (besides directly toward your opponent on the ground) already kinda hampers him. In terms of his sheer power once he gets a hold of you and the fact that I can't get near a Tager as Noel without getting punished despite me being able to kick the shit out of the higher tier characters means Tager isn't dead yet.

Yeah. He's pretty impressive once he gets his hands on you, and he has a hilarious amount of anti-projectile options. I won't pretend to actually know much about blazblue. Just that MikeZ quit because they were nerfing Tager even tho he was already low-tier.

Arcus DiabolusOct 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Yeah. He's pretty impressive once he gets his hands on you, and he has a hilarious amount of anti-projectile options. I won't pretend to actually know much about blazblue. Just that MikeZ quit because they were nerfing Tager even tho he was already low-tier.

Yeee.

My point was just that "low tier" and "top tier" doesn't mean much if its all pretty well balanced. At that point its all about your own skill level.

Lordk0zOct 4, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arcus Diabolus,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=L4hWPOoB,comment-id=00190000000000000000,timestamp=2016-10-04T03:28:45.401+0000)

Yeee.

My point was just that "low tier" and "top tier" doesn't mean much if its all pretty well balanced. At that point its all about your own skill level.

And individual match-ups. Match-ups and counter-picking should matter more than tier lists.

WoonStruckOct 4, 20161 votes

Tager is one of Noel's worst match-ups. He's not good. He's just good vs Noel, who isn't even a top-tier character.

Why? Because in order for her to touch him, their hit-box and hurt-box have to meet. Noel does not have good hit-boxes. She has hurt-boxes she can abuse. None of her decent hit-confirms are safe to go in with vs Tager.

I know a professional Noel player that lost to Hell Tager (computer) in the previous game. Her options vs him are that bad. That does not make Tager good. That makes Noel (alone) bad against him.

WoonStruckOct 4, 20161 votes

Lol. Blazblue is not that balanced.

Its balance is alright, but it is absolutely not something you can attempt to praise. Entire fighting game communities dropped Blazblue (which was previously the most popular anime-fighting) at casuals because of the latest game.

The latest game made balance worse than it was prior.

Mediocrity is not praiseworthy.

SylvantOct 4, 20161 votes

I expect more diversity because all champions should be efficient in certain environment, against certain matchups, or inside a specific team combo. Instead we see only few standard combos that work extremely well and above anything else.

lilpokflufOct 4, 20161 votes

I'm kinda with you on this. I don't see the issue with pros playing only 3-4 champs each. That's how a majority of us play why should they be any different, obviously their pocket picks will be in the meta but it's still better than when someone feeds by picking a random champ. Sure it was funny when Huni picked Lucian top but it really took away from the match when he just fed his ass off and the enemy team got a free win