Is the Gameplay Board biased? Let's find out!

BobaFlautist··41 votes·3,335 views

Made a quick Google form where you say what you play and what you think is strongest. Obviously not following scientific statistic procedures, but it should be fun! The results will be freely available.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5_NynHaojePBysWmvQgnoy5Okav6xCma4xthSagV0mdCs-g/viewform?usp=sf_link

Have fun!

Edit: For those that are curious, here's the raw data of the responses. Feel free to make whatever correlation=causation posts you want with it https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SgEKwnUjKkr7uJJM37HWdZ1k6oyfDTVAYA7_8SLzrqA/edit?usp=sharing

Edit2: Closing the poll in about an hour.

Edit3: Got to this a little late (busy day!), but the poll is closed. All results are final, feel free to use the data as you please, and feel free to make a similar (or vastly different!) poll of you're one of the many people with a genius idea for how I should have done it.

Edit4: A nice little graphic of (part of) the results. There are of course many ways to frame the results, depending on what you're looking for. Credit to NM1010 for the image. https://i.gyazo.com/a62d495d0cfecdb4f091ce80064a2b74.png

90 Comments

Naymliss11 votes

Wait, people actually have ADC as having more influence than mid? ADC require your team to set you up in lane with a support, mid game with warding so you can farm, and late game with initiations and peel. Mid can roam to set up vision, assist enemy laners and assist the jg. It's not like they all fall off either, I'd like to see any ADC even attempt to 1v1 a well played azir, ryze or Cassiopeia(ADC's mid lane DPs mage counterparts). I'd like to see an adc create picks on their own when not massively ahead, like so many mid lane assassins can.

Don't get me wrong, ADC is powerful, but the most influential? I don't think so.

Votable Jester4 votes

Yeah I agree with you. If I was to rank them all from most to least.

Powerful: ADC, Mid, Top/Support/Jungle (pretty close between these last 3) Influential: Jungle, Mid, Support, Top/ADC

This is only true for the current meta though, if it went back to stuff like the old 2+ supports for the ADC comps, ADC influence would go up a lot, and mid would drop down a bit.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

{quoted}

Wait, people actually have ADC as having more influence than mid? ADC require your team to set you up in lane with a support, mid game with warding so you can farm, and late game with initiations and peel. Mid can roam to set up vision, assist enemy laners and assist the jg. It's not like they all fall off either, I'd like to see any ADC even attempt to 1v1 a well played azir, ryze or Cassiopeia(ADC's mid lane DPs mage counterparts). I'd like to see an adc create picks on their own when not massively ahead, like so many mid lane assassins can.

Don't get me wrong, ADC is powerful, but the most influential? I don't think so.

Mid can currently only influence the game by getting Bot ahead with roams and such. You are effectively a second support for the ADC.

The Yetii Rider7 votes

37 respondents prefer mid lane.

Only 2 people say that mages are the strongest role, and only 4 people say that assassins are the strongest role.

Riiiiight.

BobaFlautist9 votes

People are inclined to think roles/classes other than their own are strongest. Nothing new about that, it's just confirmation bias.

Personally, I think adc has the most "Power" but Jungle has the most influence, and I play mostly mid these days. I know I'm biased, but that's my impression.

The other thing that I intentionally built in is that you can say that you prefer a role even if you don't play it. I really like playing support and tank characters, but I struggle to jungle/top/bot-support them, so I don't actually play them that much.

The Yetii Rider5 votes

Well, I'm a tank jungler and I did vote that jungle has the most influence on the game (at present, it really does), but I also understand that mage is probably the most powerful class in the game. It always has been and it always will be. A mage's mere presence forces an entirely new set of items to be built by everyone. Having a single mage on the enemy team demands an even mix of armor and MR, which in turn increases the damage the rest of the mage's team deals simply because the enemy team cannot stack armor.

Just by picking a mage you are halving the number of item slots a tank or diver has to build armor. That is an astronomical amount of power to bring to a team.

Votable Jester5 votes

Just by picking an ad champion you force the enemy to build armor. If it weren't for the ad champions the tanks could just build mr and become unstoppable.

Face it, the fact that you consider the mr to be getting in the way of armor indicates that armor is the crucial stat, likely because that's where most of the damage to a tank actually comes from. Yes a tank does need an mr item, but they need several armor items.

The Yetii Rider4 votes

That's not true at all, lol.

Armor protects you against dragon, minions, and towers. Tanks need to be able to dive towers. Tanks would still build armor even against an all magic damage team. The only source of ambient, non champion magic damage in the game is Baron Nashor.

SooFr0sty1 votes

Don't forget gromp magic crits

HeeroTX8 votes

{quoted}

Personally, I think adc has the most "Power" but Jungle has the most influence, and I play mostly mid these days. I know I'm biased, but that's my impression.

I'm an adc main and I'd actually agree with this. Often late game can come down to which team protects their adc better, but if you don't want to play that kind of META, you can short-circuit it as a jungler by snowballing the other lanes or stomping the enemy bot before they can get on track. My perspective is that jungle is most impactful because a wide variance in that role will screw one team really badly. ANY laner (including bot) can be neutralized with the other lanes doing better (ie. if top and mid are strong but bot is weak, the other lanes can carry, and depending on the overall skill, even 1 can offset if its only the adc that's good in bot). But if the enemy jungle is top tier and your jungler is garbage, then ALL the lanes are gonna feel it.

BestPudgeNA1 votes

{quoted}

I'm an adc main and I'd actually agree with this. Often late game can come down to which team protects their adc better, but if you don't want to play that kind of META, you can short-circuit it as a jungler by snowballing the other lanes or stomping the enemy bot before they can get on track. My perspective is that jungle is most impactful because a wide variance in that role will screw one team really badly. ANY laner (including bot) can be neutralized with the other lanes doing better (ie. if top and mid are strong but bot is weak, the other lanes can carry, and depending on the overall skill, even 1 can offset if its only the adc that's good in bot). But if the enemy jungle is top tier and your jungler is garbage, then ALL the lanes are gonna feel it.

"you can snowball so the game isn't all about the ADC"

In which case snowballing bot is the most important since ADC take towers the quickest and ADC get supports which means their lane has the most extra gold in it. Not to mention dragons are easier to take with bot winning. Mid Champs AurelionSol are frankly just as good at ganking bot as junglers. In the snowball game it still ends up being about bot lane more often then not, just other roles mid/jg actually have agency in this case, so it's not all about bot it's 50% or so about bot.

I main Jungle and many time my laners feel this way, but honestly at least half of the time my ganks are only successful because the opposing laners are bad or because my laners are good and i have to do very little in a gank. It doesn't really matter how well i play either, my laners will still feel this way. I've had games where the opposing jungler is 0/2/1 at 15 mins and i'm 5/0/1 when our team has 7 total kills and literally 2 of the kills were me 2 v 1ing a full health bot lane while mine was dead and in base... And my team was still flaming me because "all lanes were losing so it must be the junglers fault"

ampheon1 votes

Just pick a support and roam with your jungler and protect the adc (and anyone else), get the best of both worlds

nm10101 votes

Did you ever stop and think... maybe they aren't? As the questions point out strong =/= influential. Mid is more influential on the map than adcs, but adcs are definitely stronger.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

I said Junglers were the most influential. Mages are definitely the strongest. There's no numerical data that shows that a marksman is capable of higher damage output than a mage when they are both given their ideal situations. That's because mages get so much damage from damaging multiple champions at once. AOE > single target burst.

nm10101 votes

Adcs are universally accepted as the strongest late game class. If you want to disagree with that you need to give the proof. Some topics I think you should cover are build costs, safety, targeted damage, dps, and power curves. The only time I would consider mages stronger with even gold is 1 item (2 depending on the mage and enemy adc).

Now I do think mages snowball easier, but not as hard as adcs because of their map pressure.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

Yes, I do not deny that marksmen are the strongest late game class. "Late game" never entered this conversation. If the game goes long enough, yes, marksmen will be the ones to finish it.

But it is the mages who decide whether the game goes that late or not.

Safety is the easiest one to cover though. This isn't even a question. Mages stay in their lane and chill. Marksmen need a babysitter.

Marksmen have basically "Get me the fuck out of here" buttons. Caitlyn Ezreal Kalista Ashe (short range panic ult), Xayah Tristana etc.

Then there are marksmen who have no safety at all: MissFortune Jhin Jinx Draven Kaisa KogMaw Quinn Twitch

Meanwhile mages have longer duration CC (Brand Veigar Elise Ahri Cassiopeia Chogath Lux Morgana Ryze TwistedFate ) at a longer range, with more opportunities to simply kill you if you get caught by their CC.

This compounds with their XP. Mages in mid lane get much more XP than marksmen in bot lane. If you have your ultimate while the marksman is level 4, you are making more of an impact on the game than they are.

nm10101 votes

Now see this is the classification difference we have. I consider being able to affect other lanes and snowball the game influential, while I consider raw threat to be the strongest class. From the minute the game begins the entire game revolves around getting your adc fed or ending the game before the enemy adc is able to get their items.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

Yes, and that is because the ADC is a liability if they do not get ahead. More than assassins, more than mages, marksmen are absolutely USELESS without gold. The marksmen support meta is honestly a ridiculous concept, one that should never have come into the game but did primarily because people wanted to mimic professionals at the end of the first season. Before that, we had mid lane marksmen trying their best to farm safely with no interest in trying to get kills or anything.

Marksmen are a drain on the team if they cannot deal damage. They are the only class in the game that cannot build tank if they fall behind. Mages can get item 3027 , supports can buy item 3190 , assassins have item 3071 and other hybrid defense items, and divers/juggernauts/wardens/vanguards all have the option of going full tank and still functioning properly (even some assassins have the option of going full tank (Ekko Fizz Rengar Khazix Elise Shaco )).

Marksmen function extremely well in a 5 man team where you have fluid communication with your support and every player trusts in the marksmen's ability to perform. They can group, they can protect. You do not see Protect the Kog'maw comps outside of 5 man premades.

Trying to say that marksmen decide the game is not an expression of their power, it is an expression of how binary their impact is on the game. Either they can smoke turrets and melt tanks or they do NOTHING. That is not power.

nm10101 votes

Yes, and that is because the ADC is a liability if they do not get ahead.

Not a liability if they don't get ahead, that is assassins. Adcs are a liability if the enemy adc gets ahead, because they are so strong the enemy bot will just steam roll if they get a lead.

marksmen are absolutely USELESS without gold

Good thing their items cost less, scale better than other classes items, and they get a dedicated support to help them acquire gold.

Marksmen are a drain on the team if they cannot deal damage.

Yet they are mandatory, this should speak volumes about their power level. As I said at high level play the entire game revolves around getting your adc ahead or ending the game.

Marksmen function extremely well in a 5 man team where you have fluid communication with your support and every player trusts in the marksmen's ability to perform. They can group, they can protect. You do not see Protect the Kog'maw comps outside of 5 man premades.

You right, I see juggernaut Kog'Maw stomp solo queue with Lulu (before his w nerfs). As for marksmen in general I see plenty of tank, tank, mage, support, adc comps in solo queue. This is basically the best comp to win consistently if you don't suck. Tanks + support enable the mage early game roams/skirmishes, then transition to engage/peel for the adc in mid - late game.

Trying to say that marksmen decide the game is not an expression of their power

This is almost the explicit opposite of what I said.

I consider being able to affect other lanes and snowball the game influential, while I consider **raw threat to be the strongest **class

Mages and junglers decide the direction of the game, but in terms of raw power the adcs have all the pieces after an item or two. Think of it like chess. The queen is the most powerful piece in the game, but you rarely see her moved around aggressively early because your other pieces have much more influence on the direction of the game at that time.

BobaFlautist1 votes

I left "powerful" intentionally ambiguous, because I wanted to see how different people contrasted it with "influential".

I'd say any class could be characterized as "Most Powerful", depending on the precise context of the situation - Supports could be in "0-Item Teamfights", adcs in "Raw 6-item objective dps", fighters in "Best able to 1v3 against opponents when up an item and two levels", tanks "Fighting someone weaker under tower", Mages "Raw damage potential across 5s counting aoe damage x5)"....

Power is subjective. That's why there are 140 Champions and every single one manages to be hated on their own merits.

So really, that question was a very sneaky way of asking "What kind of gameplay power do you feel the lost strongly about?"

And I think it's no secret that League players tend to overvalue lategame power, especially damage. That's always been the case, and it's not unusual for the (non-top-5%) of a playerbase to overvalue big numbers (which tend to come later). Everyone's a bit of a Timmy at heart.

PopcornBunni4 votes

Tank Top main

Put ADCs as the most powerful and supports as the most impactful

Child of the Pit2 votes

Nah, supports are the most powerfull and Junglers as the most impactfull, simply cos an adc is only a walking sack of gold without those two

Cairo King3 votes

If 60% are saying that marksman are over powered that is 3/5 which could mean jg mid and top think so lol. So sounds pretty biased to me.

Lauchmelder4 votes

If every lane/role other than bot says that bot has too much power over the game then bot denying that is biased, not the other way around.

If top said that mid is too strong, mid said jungle is too strong and jungle said bot is too strong it would mean the game is quite balanced. That's not the case.

Acheron161 votes

Yet not many people play the role, despite being supposedly so powerful.

Mmmm...

Lauchmelder2 votes

Bullshit argument is bullshit.

I don't like playing botlane -> I don't play botlane.

Doesn't matter how broken a role is, if I don't enjoy it: I. AIN'T. GONNA. PLAY. IT.

Acheron161 votes

Yet not everyone is you, pretty sure SOME people would do so, yet marksman is still one of the least played roles.

Automated Riven3 votes

I'm pretty sure that top/support are the bottom two and adc jungle is the top 2. Barring Vietnam. Based on the post riot made a while back.

Iirc

Dokueki Kenshin1 votes

I can’t get to it. :(

Get Ogre Here1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dokueki Kenshin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MZFEMz00,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-03-15T20:41:27.177+0000)

I can’t get to it. :(

Why not?

Dokueki Kenshin1 votes

There isn’t any link to click on. I click on the image itself and it does nothing, and there’s no linked text to take me to the page.

rawiazam14 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dokueki Kenshin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MZFEMz00,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2018-03-15T20:55:20.105+0000)

There isn’t any link to click on. I click on the image itself and it does nothing, and there’s no linked text to take me to the page.

that's no image

Ashen Rider1 votes

{quoted}

that's no image

THAT'S NO MOON

Cyrosi1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dokueki Kenshin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MZFEMz00,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2018-03-15T20:55:20.105+0000)

There isn’t any link to click on. I click on the image itself and it does nothing, and there’s no linked text to take me to the page.

I see the same thing. Just know that that bottom pixel of the "image" where it meets the page background is where you have to click. I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because I just upgraded to Windows 10. Who knows?

Rayjay Redfang2 votes

Works fine for me, using chrome on my phone and I can fill it out without leaving the forums

Illâoi Evê Siôn1 votes

You can answer more than once?

BobaFlautist3 votes

You can if you want! I didn't want to require a log-in or email address, as that would discourage respondants. If anything, people voting more than once would reflect the enthusiasm they have for being heard - if gameplay has equal numbers of support and jungle players but he jungle players care ten times as much about being heard, then that would lead to a bias anyway.

But yeah, this isn't an exceptionally rigerous poll. They're super easy to make though, if you're interested in collecting your own data.

Illâoi Evê Siôn4 votes

I just wanted to warn you that the data might be biased then.

BobaFlautist4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Illâoi Evê Siôn,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MZFEMz00,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2018-03-15T22:28:21.198+0000)

I just wanted to warn you that the data might be biased then.

and

[{quoted}](name=It Hertz When IP,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MZFEMz00,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2018-03-15T22:28:25.706+0000)

So what's the point in the poll? If we're not trying to filter out response bias at all, then I could just open up the hot page and count the threads for each side.

The (stated) purpose of the poll is to measure bias. If the type of people that typically post/vote a lot on the boards submit multiple responses, then they're demonstrating the bias the poll is designed to measure.

What's the problem?

Poske1 votes

Adc mains are more likelly to respond since they dont want their lane Power to be exposed

Not to mention that you could lie on this post

FurriesAreHot2 votes

How does us responding effect bias? You don't have to be a marksman main to be biased against the ADC role.

Poske1 votes

If you write a nerf Xayah thread mostly Xayah main ll come and influence it

The OP post is just hidden Nerf ADC and jungle post in disguise. Every good player knows it just by looking at thread name

FurriesAreHot2 votes

of course. A main would always want to see what others think regarding their character. Whether they agree or not is another story.

Poske1 votes

#And an ADC main is more likely to press on this thread due to it having classes and Bias

Hm to put it this way

Had he nameda title Are AD carries to strong then you would see much more massive bias I am just saying that mentioning the world bias and classes draws AD carry mains.. to this thread

BobaFlautist3 votes

You caught me! I'm a top lane main in disguise trying to subtly infuence Riot using Big Data™ to nerf adcs and junglers by putting out an unprofessionally designed, statistically insignificant, survey subject to voluntary response bias and population bias.

Do you think it's working?

FurriesAreHot2 votes

Stop in the name of the motherland!

BobaFlautist1 votes

Too late! Riot has already hired me to be the new Nerf Master Suck Town.

Tine to cut all crit, shielding, healing, and bonus ad values in half.

TempName748141 votes

gameplay board is basically reddit. it's just a place for g3 and belows to circlejerk on made-up balance issues

BobaFlautist2 votes

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