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Current Item Design and Clear Inconsistencies with Current Design Philosophy

GrievousFetus·5/14/2017, 4:35:27 PM·4 votes·490 views

When reading the dev notes, it became apparent that one of the development team's biggest focuses currently is on "windows of power". Lots of new champions and champions who've had recent reworks have been given minigame elements to their kits and highly conditional abilities trying to give them clear instances where they're weak and where they're strong. Fiora is strong when you have a vital facing her and weak when her riposte is on cooldown, Yorick is weak when he has no ghouls up and his power spikes dramatically when he hits four graves. Even older champions exercised this design to an extent, Xerath for instance had to expose himself every so often and sacrifice his huge range to proc his passive and refresh his mana pool.

But this philosophy hasn't adequately extended to items. Lots of the stronger (and much weaker!) items in the game fall into this problem. Back in mid to late season 6, Rylai's was a huge problem being bought on every single mage even if they didn't have specific synergy with it and it was rightfully gutted for being too strong and overbearing. For all of Riot's talk about "windows of power" and implementation of it into newer champion kits the vast majority of finished items in the game are still defined by a unique passive that has a near 100% uptime. After completing Rylai's most mages permanently had a slow on all 4 of their abilities, and sometimes even their passive. There's no balance of power here. Rylai's still has this huge problem, but its stats have been tuned down so significantly it's no longer a problem for the game. If Rylai's instead was an active item there'd be an incredibly distinct window of power and window of weakness (when the item active is in effect, and when the item active is on CD respectively) which means that the smaller instance when Rylai's is in effect could be all the more powerful and impactful.

This has been a problem with grievous wounds (specifically Executioner's Calling) as well. I'll use Vladimir here as an example, however there are plenty of other champions affected in the same way such as Dr. Mundo. After his rework in the Mid Year Mage Update in S6 Vladimir's kit shifted the power on his Q around so that there were distinct windows when his healing was especially strong, rather than him simply healing at a constant rate at all times. This was a great change. Executioner's calling applies Grievous Wounds as an on-hit effect, realistically it's going to have an extremely high uptime during an engagement. What is the point behind giving Vlad this attack pattern where he has small windows where his healing is much stronger than usual, if the item which mitigates heals does not do the same in turn and merely inhibits his healing constantly at all points? It creates an incredibly binary gameplay scenario where Vlad can only be balanced one of two ways:

  1. his healing is tuned for the enemy not building grievous wounds, and is undertuned when they do inflict GW upon him
  2. his healing is tuned for the enemy building grievous wounds, and is overtuned when they don't inflict GW upon him

This is a big problem. The intended counter-items don't follow the same gameplay and design philosophies that the champion kits do. Ideally, executioner's calling should give the user a brief window to massively inhibit the enemy's healing for only a short period, and one of the tipping points of the fight or skirmish should revolve around the player successfully applying healing mitigation at the same time the enemy champion reliant on healing uses their strongest heals. Vladimir (for instance, other healing champs could be affected the same way such as warlord's users) wants to avoid popping his crimson rush or ult heal while his heals are greatly reduced, and can potentially play around the enemy team by saving them for after his enemies have whiffed their healing mitigation item.

Thornmail is much the same way, following a binary gameplay pattern because of its permanent uptime and lack of a window of power and weakness. When a tank buys Thornmail they are now a huge problem for the ADC simply by possessing it, and likewise once the ADC possesses lifesteal the thornmail in its entirety is invalidated.

I am really pleased to see that a lot of newer items have either actives or more obvious effects, like redemption, stoneplate, and coin's skillpoint elixir. But I don't understand why time hasn't been taken to go back and change a lot of older items that utilize this archaic model of permanently in effect passives into active items.

18 Comments

Ralanr5/14/2017, 4:40:26 PM2 votes

I do not want more active items. At the very least I don't want to have more than one active item in my build because I don't want to think about when to activate "Axe of kindling" in a fight. I just want to focus around my champions abilities.

Makharya5/15/2017, 1:30:29 AM2 votes

The question isn't clear. In any case active isn't the only possibility of window of power, an excellent example of that is the sterak (or gargoyle passive).

Moreover champion kit and itemization doesn't aim the same thing. With your logic we shoud just delete any passive stats. Kit are very precise and the designer know how it will interact with other element of the kit. On the other side items are pretty general, will go on a lot of champ. And even if they look similar their kit will have important difference.

Moreover having passing effect doesn't mean you don't have window of use. The executionner calling give grievous woudn at each AA, so you still have possibility to sustain outside of fight (or you don't have enough range and get hit each time you try :D but the window is here). Or just simply, don't have to be on a window of power. Randuin crit reduction is a good example, randuin is here to make you more tanky against ADC, it has a clear purpose. If we make add it a window of power it would be more restricted like against all/poke/... And that's not necessarily the goal.

I think you're missing the point of the window of power. This isn't a goal by itself. Window of power has two main role (if i don't forgot anything): - giving couterplay. That's a way of doing it, not the only one and it hasn't to be use systematically.

  • let space for interactivity. And it seems that it was the maing point.

Window of power which are old as game (CD are one): let you adapt your playstyle to the moment. It's a good way between oppressive in permanence and not letting you play and not having any pressure at all. Item mostly need high CD as they would overload the number of "ability" someone has to use making it unclear and spamming it. So it's give poor interest, look at randuin active, even if this window of power exist, they are hidden by more important one.

Doozku5/14/2017, 6:16:52 PM1 votes

If you've ever played dota, you would know that almost every big item in that game is an active. I don't like that system because if your aren't used to it, than it is just super confusing and you just forget to use some actives. Especially with all of the super micro-managing with things like tread-switching, its just a massive pain.

hhaavviikk5/14/2017, 9:28:21 PM1 votes

armor and armor pen have the same problem, because armor pen is so strong armor also has to be strong, what this results in is that if you don't buy armor pen any tank with armor will 1 vs 1 you

Acheron165/15/2017, 12:49:34 PM1 votes

Grievous Wounds are the main offender here. Someone like Soraka or Vladimir has to intereact with other champions in order to access their healing power, even more so since Vladimir's Q healing was windowed and Soraka was given %HP costs to her healing.

Yet Grievous Wounds has 100% uptime with Executioner's Calling and is easily accessible via a mage item that the vast majority of mages buy (Morellonomicon).

Why?