A silver’s opinion on why silver opinions don’t matter to game balance

Edgy Katana Man·Feb 25, 2019·2 votes·1,146 views

I’m silver 3. I’ve been playing since season 4, and was placed silver 5 in season 5, so while I may not be good, I feel as though I know a lot about the game. Every time I open the boards I see threads like “cho gath op” or “help I don’t know how to cc a hyper carry,” by people my elo or lower. I myself am not a PBE account holder, but I have bronze-plat friends that are. Doesn’t it seem odd to have such a large variety of players when the game is supposed to be balanced around platinum? Why doesn’t Riot change the PBE and have only people who fundamentally understand the game balance it? Don’t get me wrong, I love this game, but the range of people that help balance seem to create discord. If the PBE was changed to even have gold-diamond wouldn’t the game have a more controlled balance?

7 Comments

MalfectiousFeb 25, 20193 votes

I would think all levels of input are important, to an extent. As far as the PBE goes, they probably as many people as the can handle, for play testing all kinds of odd character interactions.

Edgy Katana ManFeb 25, 20191 votes

Which I get, but if they want to find out those interactions, wouldn’t it be better to pair bronze PBE’s with other bronzes instead of a challenger stomping on a bronze 2? Obviously different champs will handle differently at different levels, but if they’re looking for inputs of all levels, it seems like fair matchups would be more beneficial. I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking about how Yasuo’s windwall should move, but since the way it’s used will differ from even a silver to gold level, from a lower elo’s perspective it could be very broken.

ZephyrDrakeFeb 25, 20193 votes

first, all sorts of inputs are important. If a champion is too strong at lower elos but next to useless at the higher elos you can't just make that champion stronger at all elos since there is more going on there.

Second PBE is not a good place to get any amount of useful data when it comes to balancing. Low population, uneven matches, people trying out all sorts of whacky stuff and not being serious about their matches there in general. This has bee said time and time again by Riot.

Third, just because you are Iron/Bronze/Silver it doesn't mean that your ideas are instantly inferior than those of high elo people and that you have nothing to add to anything. Plenty of people out there just don't have the time to climb the ladder, don't care about ranked, or just aren't mechanically good to climb but when asked about the game? they will tell you things in a more cohesive and useful matter than a lot of high elo players. It's not how good you are at playing the game that is important, it's how knowledgeable you are about it that is.

Edgy Katana ManFeb 25, 20191 votes

I agree with you on all points, my title was mostly an attention grabber. If you read through my comments I touch on almost all of those points. Maybe the biggest problem we’re having with balance, is the PBE isn’t being used like it should be, a whole revamp could be beneficial. I know league is looked at as a neck beard community, but if we could somehow work our community towards an intelligent and friendly place to be, not only would it make people more interested in playing, but it would be more fulfilling to play. I realize that might be idealistic, but still a nice idea.

FrozenFrostFyreFeb 25, 20192 votes

I think it's good that riot tried to have nerfs targeted at lower elos of play. Lower elo players deserve to have fun playing the game and having a say just like anyone else, but I wish they would back up and reason their arguments out better such as "the gold efficiently on x item is way too high compared to z item" instead of "x item is op" another example: " m champion has x y z while n champion only has y z".

Edgy Katana ManFeb 25, 20191 votes

That’s a good point, I think you’re right, maybe the way that’s solved is by having essays on why they should be a PBE member. I too have champions I have problems with, but I see where these champions also have their weaknesses. A big thing with the whole “muh vayne op” is that league is bringing in a lot of younger players that don’t exactly understand the reasoning and don’t even really want to understand.

General MattyFeb 26, 20191 votes

I don't even play ranked anymore. It's just too frustrating and almost always makes my blood pressure go up. I think everyones opinion should be taken into account no matter what elo they are.