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RiotGhostcrawler14 votes

Happy to answer any questions you guys might have about the talk. I know it is long. :(

Also keep in mind that the audience was game developers, and while we didn't say anything I wouldn't say to players, I'd probably say some of it in a different way.

Sad Tyrant4 votes

do you have bronze level players on your playtest team?

Leonerdo3 votes

I remember a Rioter got asked this before (I think in one of the Patch Chat threads), and the answer was that they have plenty of Bronze-Plat Rioters throughout the company; and since everyone at Riot participates occasionally in playtests, they don't need to hire extra playtesters, except for top-tier players.

Sad Tyrant1 votes

Thanks!, though it kinda defeats the purpose.

EROTIC RAID BOSS2 votes

This isn't true the playtest team is made up of all diamond to master players

Leonerdo3 votes

Yes the dedicated Playtest Team is made up of Diamond+ players, whose only job is to playtest. But everyone else at Riot, from all departments (I'm 90% sure it's all departments, and not just gameplay designers), also playtests new things when they have time between their other work. And those Rioters (like the playerbase in general) are mostly Bronze-Plat. So Riot has plenty of playtest feedback from those skill levels naturally.

Emmy Cha0s6 votes

You'll find that there are even some Rito employees who have never played the game at all. Of course, they're in departments not directly involved in the game itself. Probably accounting and such.

SteelMankind6 votes

Also, the skills required in game design (computer science/math skills, artistic talent, communication) are way more important than just being a good league player. They do hire high elo players to test things, but its only a small aspect of champion balance and development at Riot.

Emmy Cha0s6 votes

As a matter of fact, yes. For example, Fearless, who has headed MANY(unsuccessful) projects is in fact Bronze 1/Silver 5 and has been for a very long time. At least since spring of season 4 when he first began on murdering "reworking" Sona for patch 4.13.

Spideraxe3 votes

How would you accurately guage skill and mastery through stats because current mastery system rewards playing that champ a lot

Moonboy651 votes

Do you know who is part of the Demacia update by any chance?

Risk of Fate1 votes

While I might not be a developer/programmer myself, it's always interesting to get a viewpoint from people in the industry. Going to try and best phrase this as best as I can.

Anyway, so lately I've been thinking about a couple of concepts that have popped into my head from picking up MMOs once more which are, as I call them, Investment and Commitment and CQC (Content, Quality, Cost). I'm pretty sure you went over the second one in a manner when you were talking about designing champions.

For the first, however, is I realize that League of Legends, compared to a lot of other games, has a very high Investment and Commitment. Investment meaning the amount of time someone has to play to get to a level of enjoyment and Commitment being the minimum the player needs to keep an interest in the game. There are so many champions to play plus different ways to play them on top of the 2-week patches. This can be daunting for both new and veteran players, do you ever take those factors into consideration when trying to make for a good player experience?

LostFr0st2 votes

It was pretty fun to watch and very informative; the choice of graphics was good.

If you have time, I do have a question related to APM (or lack thereof) in some champs, specifically on the topic of champion update. (Although this also relates heavily to the upcoming tank update.)

I have acquaintances who tend to choose low apm champs (usually tanky) due to either low dexterity or hand problems, etc. but sometimes when a champ is modified or reworked a lot of that accessibility is lost. The latest reworks (WW and Galio) have mechanics where holding down the button yields a highly valuable modified skill, but when that champ goes live that particular button combination may add a physical floor to the champ for some players.

How is that situation being approached/has it come up in data analysis?

Keevalroy16 votes

Okay, long winded salt mountain coming in about your design philosophy and practices, so everyone downvote away if you don't want to see me whine.

That whole "one step forward, two steps backward" thing you mentioned does happen as you said, but it's been happening since the Juggernaut patch as if Riot has learned virtually nothing from their previous works.

The designer tinkering where the developer has a crazy idea and throws it into the game is painful for players, but you continue to let that happen with the creation of champions like:

Azir 2-3 oppressive non-targetable soldiers are forcing you away from your lane and can proc Rylai's passive so I'm being hit with his CDR-affected attack speed that works on the soldiers, while getting slowed so they can hit me more before I can get away. Gee that sure sounds like a fun champion, at least I can run at - oh wait, he threw up an impassable wall and slid away knocking up anyone who got behind him.

Camille

What needs to be said about this monstrosity and the unnecessary mobility tacked onto an already damage heavy kit with slows and a stun on top of a shield and a speed steroid? Oh yeah, the true damage she has for no reason.

Ekko
Released with 3 slows, a speedup, percent execute damage, an AoE stun that gives him a shield, a dash PLUS a blink combo that could proc his 3 hit passive with an AoE nuke that functions as an Oops button that heals him...and you want to tell me that not only is that an "assassin," but that it's also a healthy design...aaaalllright then...

Kalista

What is this thing? What possesses someone to add a dash after every auto attack and say there's nothing wrong here? Riot has gone as far as to nerf this abomination's AD effectiveness to 90% because they don't want to touch the passive, which is the problem, always was the the problem, and always will be the problem until it's gone.

Yasuo

Heavy bias, but this was one of the worst things to ever come out of Riot's design department. This monster set the standard for the future of League where everyone had obnoxious mobility, a hundred passives, and flashy plays that are exciting to watch with no thought whatsoever going into how it feels to play against it. Look at his kit, watch him function in a game, and there should be no question why he's easily one of the most hated champions in the game...and a favorite of Riot's.

and the reworks like:

Ahri

More heavy bias: So DFG got removed and Ahri would be weaker without it and slight buffs were considered. Seems fair right? Unfortunately, thematic gameplay be damned while LCSBIGPLAYS can be made, so you stripped the Kiss of Death mechanic from this succubus and gave it to Fishboy, then added random movement speed after throwing her orb. Surprise surprise, mobility is a lot stronger than Riot wants to believe, and it broke her.

Though she's been nerfed, she's not healthy, and it's because of that 5.2 change that added this ridiculous movement speed she never needed. At this point, I don't give a damn if she doesn't get the Charm amp back anymore, just get rid of the Q speed and her "too-high" winrate will fall, and the Ahri's that are legitimately good with her, will still be able to carry while the button spammers will struggle without their safety net pre-6.

Fiora I want to make an argument for her, I really do, particularly her true damage, W, and her heal on ult, but the old Fiora was arguably worse, so I'll just skip over this a bit and say this wasn't a successful rework.

Malzahar

Look at him. Look at his sorry state and tell me his fans deserved this, because they didn't. I don't even play him, but I feel for his players.

Mordekaiser

Morde fans warned you what would happen if you went through with the rework. Riot ignored them. They told you it was terrible and would create more problems than it solved. Riot ignored them. They told you he doesn't belong in bot lane, and it was a foolish thing to force. Riot talked down to criticism instead of ignoring, but hey, it was something right? I would give a lot of credit to MM for his persistence on trying to fix him.

RengarRyze

How many times are you going to rework these guys before you accept they're not healthy by design, and change them? Rengar's instagibbing is bad enough, but adding immunity to CC...what the hell were you guys thinking?? And for Ryze? The mana-stacking CC spamming is a problem...maybe stop trying to make it work because it's becoming pretty sad at this point watching constant failure with the same mistakes over and over.

Skarner

Spires weren't wanted. They're a gimick and were part of your incessant desire to shove mini games into every kit, and what happened? People didn't like them? Shocker.

The worst addition to the game by far, isn't a champion, it's the mastery update from preseason 6 which introduced the keystone system. That was a travesty right off the bat and it should have been obvious from the start. All this has done is create a revolving door of champions who can abuse your power-creeped keystones better than others. You created a system that allows champions that would otherwise have been happy going into a countered lane to piss themselves knowing that their opponent can abuse their keystone enough for that countered matchup to be reversed, and god forbid you don't go all the way down the cookie cutter pages loaded with damage, damage, and more damage to hit them. These keystones are also constantly being reworked because of certain champions breaking them, which have to be balanced around their use, and then the replacement is unusable, those nerfed champions stay nerfed, and the new keystone will be broken on someone else now. When was the last time the old mastery system did this? Oh wait, it didn't because it was healthier, gave you more freedom to customize, didn't give essentially a 5th ability, and didn't break everyone and everything it touched rendering champions overpowered as shit or completely useless because of their contents.

"Was Poppy the problem or was CoC the problem?" You're right that it was both, but it didn't stop with CoC, the whole mastery system is a problem and needs reverted to it's healthier state. That alone will drastically increase game health and go a long way in reducing the League of Explosions.

I want to point out too that when you mentioned that you do in fact balance for the pro scene to be exciting to watch, I just want to thank you. Not for the action, hell no I'm furious, but for finally admitting it. It's not fun to be lied to for 3 years when devs insist otherwise, especially when we already know your obsessive drooling over the pro matches drives this game forward now. I also want to say, that if people are tuning out of esports, maybe it's not for them. If they find entertainment, they'll watch, if not, they won't. This is a game first, not a sport, and you're insane if you believe League will be a global sport that lasts generations on the level of baseball and basketball (which don't change their rules every two weeks.) You are a player focused company, not spectator focused. The state of the pro scene should NEVER come before the state of the normal game, because that's how games die. We've seen it too many times for it to be just a coincidence.

With feedback, it also helps if you address the concerns of players who are angry, confused, or just innocently curious about changes or additions to the game, and it would help tremendously if Rioters would stop hiding in an echo chamber of positivity and praise, running away from criticism and complaints. As you mentioned, listen at your peril, and I'm not making demands that you listen to everything I say (without being hired...? I could help make League great again...eh? Eh? Y'know you want to - you love salt don't you?) but I want to stress that Riot communicates more than just throwing Meddler at the mercy of Boards once in a while to explain certain thoughts, but not specific pain points players are having.

Edit: Some grammar errors.

Edit 2: One additional thing I forgot to add since I was worried about running out of room is plants. You're describing player perception of them as if they never changed, when they did. Their spawn rate was random and added too much RNG, so they were changed because players were angry about it - it wasn't just a case of "they didn't like it because they didn't see it," they were changed before release. Personal opinion added - plants remain to be a stupid waste of time and resources that could have been spent elsewhere on game aspects which deserve attention. This was just more of the same change for the sake of change we've grown used to seeing because there's nothing else to them.

I think if there's any takeaway from my rant, it should be that Riot needs to stop thinking about adding or changing things because they can, and start thinking more about whether or not they should.

For example:

Good change - Okay, junglers are struggling and need to buy GP10 items to stay relevant, so let's give them their own item that helps them out a bit.

Bad change - The jungle hasn't been changed in 11 minutes and it's getting stale. Hmm...let's add plants and nerf vision again to justify adding a reveal plant!

Good change - Kassadin has a 97% ban rate, and people are really getting sick of scumbag players picking him in normals, we need to rework him, even if it takes a few tries.

Bad change - X champion isn't played that much, so we're gonna rework them, dump them in another lane, refuse to admit we fucked up, and leave them for dead hoping the playerbase will forget.

Good change - Taking away promos since they don't cause anything but anxiety and frustration. (Please...)

Bad change - Dynamic Queue. (what needs to be said?) They're complaining about it? Uggh, let's talk to them about it, aheh-hehem, "You think we made a mistake? WRONG! FAKE NEWS! SAD!" It's paraphrased, but only a little.

EROTIC RAID BOSS8 votes

In fairness...

Camille post nerfs is pretty fair. Her problem wasn't an overloaded kit but overtuned numbers. Now that her kit had her heavily relying on her hookshot to be a real threat as was originally intended I think she's a lot more fair

Ekko they've finally gotten right but it took them a long time to get him off the tank/skirmish builds

Yasuo actually has a lot of counter play built into his kit. He's just obnoxious.

Mordekaiser is probably healthier now than he used to be and he actually does work better in bot lane the players just aren't into playing him there. I think he's a demonstration of why its a mistake to try and diversify bot lane though. Adc sup 2v2s are fun, double melee/mage kill lanes are not

And rengar is healthier now too. His ultimate has a lot more counter play to it now

Keevalroy5 votes

Just because a toxic champion is nerfed to a balanced state doesn't excuse their release. I'm not complaining about their balance, I'm complaining about their kit design.

ModAcademy Kayn4 votes

Just saying, but a lot of those examples you listed are about Reworks, or Champion design, which GC isn't completely in charge of/as knowledgeable about.

Keevalroy6 votes

Not blaming him for all the bad in the world, just reminding him that the idea that the game is improving is objectively false.

ModAcademy Kayn5 votes

That's a very subjective view. Sure, the current game's state isn't the best, but I personally like the direction. Problem is, we're still on the beginning of the path of changing classes so that they work together. Currently we have the New Adc's fighting the Old Tanks, which results in a contradictory of Class Values, since Tanks haven't been updated yet.

Keevalroy8 votes

Well, that's why it's objectively false, because I on the other hand, hate the direction.

ModAcademy Kayn6 votes

Subjective means based on personal feelings, opinions or tastes, so it's still subjectively false for you. Objective means without personal feelings tied in, which considering how you started your original comment with how it was a "Salt mountain", it's very subjective.

Irelia Bot2 votes

is the abundance of way to ignore/remove armor compared to how it use to be seen as an issue.

Mainly the combination of LW with BC and some lethality added on often bypassing over 60% of a tanks armor.

Siachi3 votes

How much focus is put in a character's theme when it comes to balancing? Where even if a character is balanced, and maybe even still fair to play against, but the way they play is just so against the character's theme or fantasy, that players may feel like they aren't getting what they signed up for.

Linna Excel2 votes

What is it like to balance LoL versus WoW?

TerraRising6 votes

I love the hypocrisy.

Champs with "smart" AI minions like Malz, Zyra, Annie and Ivern are fine for pro play...

But Heimer and Yorick can go screw themselves.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

Zyra was nerfed due to being uninteractive, plants no longer auto-target without Hit.

Annie was nerfed (and reworked) to provide more room for reaction, but in return got Bear Revenge.

Malz has gotten nerf after nerf (Sadly)

Ivern has recieved a lot of nerfs over his release.

So, I don't see where the idea of "Fine" comes into play, when they've been nerfed so much for those AI's. Heimer and Yorick are in relatively fine places, so I don't understand where the "screw themselves" come into play.

TerraRising1 votes

That's because you're confusing balance adjustments and changes with professional viability.

All of the changes you listed have not kept most of those champs out of pro viability despite their AI.

On the other hand, Heimer and Yorick are intentionally kept out of pro play because of their AI minions.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

If you're only looking at the fact that they have "AI" for any common factor between them, than you're not looking deep enough. Yorick and Heimer have their own problems that put them in the club of "If we buff them for Pro-play, they'll become oppresive in Normals".

Simply looking at the fact they have AI, is tunnel visioning and ignores a lot of other reasons to why they aren't viable in Pro-play.

Emmy Cha0s10 votes

I must say, I feel like I wasted my time watching this. I learned exponentially more about WoW from that video than I did about Rito. I did hear you propagandize a lot of hypocrisies though, but I already expected to, even before I began. So, I'll just post 2 extremely simple questions that I know with 120% certainty that you will continue to ignore:

When will Sona be reverted to pre-4.13? You claim that champs aren't always played for balance, but the fact is that 99.9% of Sona players from pre-4.13 have abandoned her by now BECAUSE of balance. Many of whom have quit this game because they can't play their favorite Songstress, myself included for the duration of last season. We are coming up on 3 years now, how much longer are you going to refuse to admit Fearless' failure, at the loss of customers and revenue? I myself haven't played Sona or spent a penny on League since the day patch 4.13 went Live.

Secondly, when will you say to Fearless, "Your services are no longer required?" You claim that players and employees focus more on the failures than they do on the successes. The problem with Fearless, going over his resume of what projects he worked on, he has never had a single success since his employment at Rito. Matter of fact, his failures have ALL been massively influential and still negatively impact the game even to this day. Going from there, he has also repeatedly lied to, ignored, abandoned and generally disrespected us customers just as much as, if not more than Meddler. In fact, the very last post he made before abandoning Sona players, was a promise that he wouldn't abandon Sona players: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/2n8M8JVj-riot-fearless-what-was-sona-made-for?comment=0003000300000002 He has created an unknown number of shadow nerfs throughout the patches, I personally know of at least 6 or so CONFIRMED shadow nerfs specifically applied to Sona alone. Speaking of, the patch 4.13 dumpstering of Sona was such a stinking pile, Fearless intentionally hid all of the numbers and changes from both the patch notes and the champion update post. He admitted it was intentional here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/TUGkgEhf-sonas-rework-discussion-thread?comment=000600000000 He publicly implicated that the patch 4.13 dumpstering of Sona was literally just a list of 30+ nerfs and he personally was afraid of the public outrage that would be directed at him, which still occurred regardless: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/riot-official/XeGzlzez-sona-update?show=nested TO THIS DAY, no other champion has come close to having 30 individual nerfs within a single patch cycle. I'm not even sure any other champ has ever even had 30 TOTAL nerfs in their history, maybe Evelynn, idk.

Ahristocats10 votes

why do you think that reworking champions that are too strong in low elo will make them lose their popularity?

you said this argument like a fact that isn't proved by anything, when a lot of rework that made champions harder to play increased their popularity cough warwick cough darius and their overall balance

so why wouldn't you do the same for other champions that has been shown an extremely oppressive balance in low elo like Sona ? currently master tier sona players can't manage to get master anymore, Best dota 2 Sona ragequitted league after what happened to her she's extremely feast or famin, with no counterplay and low decisions which leads her to be a monster in low elo whenever she is viable in high elo (hello 58% win rate post-buff sona)

if you won't rework her or decided to keep ignoring her, THEN REVERT THE REWORK give us old sona back the sona that was strong in: lcs high elo low elo wasn't a balance nightmare as fearless said "we're reworking her because she needs more high moment not because of balance"

Sasogwa1 votes

Hello, First off; I would like to congratulate you for a really great talk. It's very well presented, explains the major problems of balancing perfectly, and I have a lot of respect for the work you guys do at the balance team. Even if sometimes I will be mad at some changes and biased on some things, in the end I still have great respect for you guys.

Now, I do have some questions, if you mind :

  • What is the relation between the team/people that create champions and the balance team itself? In particular how does it go when a complicated champion is released and qualified by the community as "balance nightmare" or "overloaded" (despite the term being pejorative). Do you gladly accept it as a challenge? Knowing that the champion is admittedly very fun and has a great lore and design in general; but causes huge problems (I'm thinking about Azir Kalista. Btw, I found quite amazing the reference to the cavalry archer. Ok I won't lie, as a melee main I do hate kite based ranged champions, and I recall using the same reference when talking to a friend :) ).

How long does it take since you consider a rework? Do you give it a chance and how is that decided ? (like, we try to balance this for 6 months and if we don't succeed we rework?)

When a new powerful kit champion is released do you think that the champion will be balanceable when released or do you have high fears it will have to be reworked/put in the gutter? If yes, does that feeling happen with some champions and not really with others?

Do sometimes parts of kits disappear in champion creation because you fear it makes the character overloaded/unbalanceable ? (or maybe I'm asking the wrong person, I do not know if you're helping/having a lot of influence on new character creation)

And if by some luck, you have some time/patience for questions outside the talk:

A lot of people are talking about the concept of mobility/damage creep. People say that back then in old seasons, the game was more healthy without it. Yet at the same time, it is true that skill has gone way higher in general and dumb mistakes in positioning, choice of targets, use of mobility spells and lots of other things are less present, so it is also a consequence of the general skill increase. What is your stance on this matter? Does it exist? Is it fictive / just a feeling that is not actually backed up by relevant data? Or is it real, and what do you think about it? (once again, I wanna stay unbiased and not assume it is bad or good, it has good points as well, like more skilltesting)

Is the goal for League of Legends "philosophy" (prob not the right word, but w/e) to be a sport? Also, how was it decided to kinda shift the identity of a "cartoonish graphics game" to a more "serious clean professional game"? (if that is even kinda the case) How did it go, I mean ; where there a lot of "fears" or did it feel like the natural solution? (my 2 cents on the subject is that I preferred the old graphics, but talking about this actually more people prefer the way it is now so it sounds like the right choice after all)

And that's it, really thank you again for a great talk.

RiotGhostcrawler14 votes

do you have bronze level players on your playtest team?

Not on the playtest team. The playtest team is specifically to help with high-tier balance issues. We have plenty of players at Riot who can help with lower-tier testing, but they aren't specifically on the playtest team.

How would you accurately guage skill and mastery through stats because current mastery system rewards playing that champ a lot

Someone asked this question after the talk and it's a good but a tough one. Ultimately, I don't think it's great that the design of LoL pushes you so heavily towards one champion. But on the other hand, that is the design we have and the one that players are used to, and doing anything too heavy handed at this phase to "force" players to play a more diverse champion pool is going to feel, well, heavy handed. It isn't that hard, in terms of making a mastery score, to underweight someone's accomplishments with a champ they play frequently and weight more heavily someone's games with champions with whom they are less familiar. The question is would that feel right or fair to players, and my guess at the current time, is no.

Also, the skills required in game design (computer science/math skills, artistic talent, communication) are way more important than just being a good league player. They do hire high elo players to test things, but its only a small aspect of champion balance and development at Riot.

Yep.

I have acquaintances who tend to choose low apm champs (usually tanky) due to either low dexterity or hand problems, etc. but sometimes when a champ is modified or reworked a lot of that accessibility is lost.

One of the things I tried to emphasize in the talk is that "player skill" is subdivided into a lot of smaller buckets. Manual dexterity (APM) to click buttons at the right time is one of those, but there are a lot of others as well. Ideally, champions play differently enough that every player can gravitate towards a champion that suits them. It's probably impossible to remove a bucket completely from a champion though. The thought of the champion that is good for someone who hates having to coordinate with their team probably wouldn't be awesome for the game.

The designer tinkering where the developer has a crazy idea and throws it into the game is painful for players, but you continue to let that happen.

So, two thoughts here. First, yes it does happen. A lot of what I talked about was aspirational - meaning this is how we want things to be. It doesn't mean that it is necessary that way now. It also doesn't mean you should immediately fire someone who makes a mistake and doesn't follow the philosophy. But you can point to the philosophy when you discuss what might have gone wrong with the project. Secondly, I just disagree that everything in your list qualifies as tinkering. Some of those changes were made with the right goals in mind, but just end up still missing the mark. Other changes were made with the right goals in mind, and did hit those goals in our mind, but you just disagree. And that's fine.

We know its a fact, A F-A-C-T that Riot has never EVER balanced for anyone except the pro players. Low tier players and their opinion dont mean jack shit to Riot and frankly i would not be surprised if Rioters look at us low level players with absolute disgust.

There was a Rioter blog about this topic long ago that told everyone only pro player opinions mattered. I think its pretty clear that stance has not changed.

Well, it's not a fact, because I'm the person who partially or largely gets to make that call, and I'm telling you that isn't how we balance. I don't know to which blog you are referring. It's possible if it's quite old that our philosophy has shifted since that time. A few years ago we didn't have a playtest team or great data collection, so we were much more dependent on what we saw pros doing in their games to try and guess at balance.

Linna Excel1 votes

{quoted}

Ultimately, I don't think it's great that the design of LoL pushes you so heavily towards one champion. But on the other hand, that is the design we have and the one that players are used to, and doing anything too heavy handed at this phase to "force" players to play a more diverse champion pool is going to feel, well, heavy handed.

IMO the easiest way to fix this is to stop making and reworking champs so that you'd need 50 games on them to get over their learning curves. I mean 2-3 champs like Lee Sin and Azir are fine, but maybe you should make champs who can be played okay in 1-5 games even if mastery takes awhile.

One of league's biggest problems is you have to learn way too much to get good with it and riot is doing little to speed up that learning curve.

Breaku1 votes

A few years ago we didn't have a playtest team

What happened to it? I interviewed for that job in like 2011?

Keevalroy7 votes

Some of those changes were made with the right goals in mind, but just end up still missing the mark. Other changes were made with the right goals in mind, and did hit those goals in our mind, but you just disagree. And that's fine.

This is what infuriates me the most with Riot's priorities. If your goal is to diversify a role, and the outcome creates three times as many health issues at it solves, as long as it slightly diversifies picks, it's considered successful. I get that you want to speak positively on the company's behalf, but that's not good enough and you know that. This brings me back to the point I made near the end of my wall of salt; you need to think less about what you could change, and more about what you should change.

Riot over the past three years has cared less and less about the state of League's health with every new season, and your class updates and balance work reflects that. Mobility creep has been on your radar for almost three and half YEARS, but it's only gotten worse, power creep was something you have been keeping an eye on for almost as long, but you continued to reinforce it with overloaded kits, percent / true damage on champions who don't need them, buffing penetration and burst, nerfing defenses, keystones, and new items like Duskblade, EoN, and Protobelt, and there's constant change for the sake of change meant to keep the game fresh, but only ends up being annoying and unnecessary, where your time and efforts could be spent trying to fix the game Riot has been ruining.

The most recent updates on how things are progressing like slowly nerfing the power creep that has accumulated over time with the assurance that the upcoming tank update won't be a repeat preseason 5 with 10 tanks melting eachother with Cinderhulk and Gromp buff this time has been a welcomed relief, but the last Riot Pls released teased an update for runes and masteries that honestly scares the shit out of me, because the same mindset of creating a fun, interactive experience with meaningful choices is what gave us keystones, and I'm pretty sure you're well aware how I personally feel about them. But my point is that considering the pattern you've laid out for us in the past, it points to nothing to look forward to in the future. I'm expecting Riot to make the same mistakes they made in season 6 without having learned anything, and we're to expect another wave of powercreep and explosions in order to make the pro scene more exciting to watch.

SirLapse2 votes

{quoted}

This is what infuriates me the most with Riot's priorities. If your goal is to diversify a role, and the outcome creates three times as many health issues at it solves, as long as it slightly diversifies picks, it's considered successful. I get that you want to speak positively on the company's behalf, but that's not good enough and you know that. This brings me back to the point I made near the end of my wall of salt; you need to think less about what you could change, and more about what you should change.

If you watched the video actually, he mentions that balance changes are inevitable and Riot is aware that it's going to happen. They want to assure that things will reach a balanced state to the players and knowing our community, we kneejerk to absolutely everything. Remember how Cinderhulk was a complaint years ago? You don't see that complaint any more. It's all newer things and the next new thing like an infinite cycle as Riot solves the existing problems. They're trying really hard honestly to make new changes and make the game more fun even if it has early (yes early) balance issues. And they won't succeed in every case, like for Nidalee, Ryze and Azir.

If there is any defined "should this change happen" stuff, honestly you'll see a lot of complacency and then players become very uncomfortable with change. I remember in S5 when they made the jungle tankier and killed off variety unintentionally, many jungle mains were angry about the fact the jungle changed at all when "it didn't have to." Players adjusted and as Riot was fixing the issue, jungle mains slowly but surely forgot the mess that was pre-season and I don't hear talks of Cinderhulk being broken like in the starting half of season 5. I saw a lot more champions and thought the season ended as a fun one overall. Wouldn't have happened if they didn't do that experimental change.

Honestly even now I'm pretty sure they're going to change the jungle fundamentally from S7's formula during S8. Way too rewarding if you are capable of farming, way too punishing if you can't. We've had the most diversity this season objectively since S5, but that's regulated by the tiers and newer releases and we've seen quite the number of picks snuffed out, i.e. Nunu, pretty much any off-meta jungler, etc. It's something I am pretty sure buffs won't fix because it'd affect their lane counterparts. Not to mention that the high tiers in the jungle role because of fast clear times can shut out a game which has everything to do with a player's perception of damage creep (when really it's that the opponent is ahead).

Keevalroy6 votes

I did watch, I did hear that they do want to make the game fun with the inevitable changes, I'm saying it's not working. They didn't learn from their previous mistakes because they saw them as successes for the reason I stated above: it brought diversity, so it's successful. Boom, end of story, nothing left to discuss. The health of the game doesn't seem to affect their decisions at all, and their radical sweeping experiments should have ended with the Juggernaut patch while the analyzed what went wrong and how they could fix it rather than going through with the ADC update - which was even worse, the mage update - which homogenized most and nerfed the rest, and the assassin update - which brought the League of Lethality. They've succeeded in diversity, sure, but they really should take credit in succeeding in creating more problems than they've solved in terms of health and balance.

And why do you think Cinderhulk isn't complained about? Surely you aren't suggesting that players adapted to it and moved on because it was nerfed multiple times along with its users to the point where in mid-season 5, we had a healthy and diverse game state.

Chromatic Eagle5 votes

Why do you think it's bad if a player mainly plays one champion?

SirLapse1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Chromatic Eagle,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=N6y3Y8z7,comment-id=00060003,timestamp=2017-03-15T21:19:39.165+0000)

Why do you think it's bad if a player mainly plays one champion?

As the video stated, it makes a player burnout a lot quicker and many players on these very boards say playing one champion all the time gets boring. If the champion gets nerfed or is in a condition like Sona and Garen where they get worse as you climb up, the player will become heavily demotivated and probably quit the game. We have more than 100 champions in this game and people lock themselves into literally just one of them, and usually won't move to other champions. Despite that, it's the best way to "gitgud" at league. It's ironic.

It is an hour long so can't blame you, but the question was addressed in the video.

Yuzuki Yukarin7 votes

This wasn't always the case for Sona though. Pre-4.13 and more accurately pre-3.14, Sona had a consistent popularity across all levels of play. It was Fearless' dumpstering of her that threw her into the Garen conundrum and Rito could easily fix the situation by reverting her to pre-4.13, to a kit that was much easier to balance than the horse shit she is now. Problem is, they've spent nearly 3 years refusing to admit their mistake and they're too afraid of the face they'll lose for all the time they've wasted.

As is proven by patch 6.14, Rito would sooner fuck around with dumpster Sona and make her even harder to balance, than they would admit the fact they screwed up 3 whole years ago and have been lying to us all this time. Problem is, their arrogance is having the reverse effect and instead they have lost nth customers and $X,XXX,XXX in revenue for the disrespect they are showing us. Rito has forgotten the basic law of business that the customer is always right. Instead, they hide behind their "secret data," make whimsical changes based on their own personal biases and tell us that THEY know what WE want better than we know ourselves.

RiotGhostcrawler14 votes

Well, that's why it's objectively false, because I on the other hand, hate the direction.

Not trying to be a jerk, but that sort of makes it subjectively false. :)

Is it true that you guys effectively have 3 days to make patch changes that occur over the course of 2 weeks? That's not nearly enough time to observe changes and fix things for anything that just suddenly bubbles up. I'd say it's pretty impressive the game has come this far with such a low window of time.

How much "effective time" goes into a full rework then? How did that vary compared to Mage update which usually has a lot more balance impact but not very much gameplay impact?

Yes, we have about 3 days to notice a problem, respond, and test those changes (both for functionality and balance). Sometimes that is why we wait for another patch if we're not sure things have settled yet - say players are still experimenting with a strategy or how to counter it.

Typically we have much longer for full rework. Something like Galio can take almost as long as a new champion. Smaller updates (say the assassin update) still last for a long time. That doesn't always (in fact it frequently doesn't) mean that balance is in a good place on those longer projects. It does mean that the team isn't often faced with "You have to decide right now if you're going to change anything."

Does Riot avoid quelling the vocal minorities out of principle (not forcing them to adapt to a change or make them move away from a champion), or does the company not have any real rules or defined perceptions of the boards? It's very difficult for Riot to communicate at times and other times it feels like the players are being ignored.

We try not to think about it in terms of minorities or majorities, because that sort of makes it sound like the process is a vote (it's not) and it also implies that the majority is always right (it's not). Sometimes a single player will make a really good point that gets us to think about something in a different way. Other times, the changes you're trying to make will only appeal to a small number of players in the first place.

Boards (and also Reddit) are a tiny fraction of players overall. That doesn't mean that players don't raise good points on them - that's why we pay attention. But because their reach is small, we also try and communicate a lot in other channels. We've been experimenting a lot with videos for example.

GigglesO2 votes

{quoted}

Sometimes a single player will make a really good point that gets us to think about something in a different way.

I just have one question, why can't morde have a fully self castable W, I don't ever remember this being discussed other than to force morde into botlane.

InTheory2 votes

[deleted]

Yuzuki Yukarin4 votes

This is the way it used to be, 1 patch about every 4 weeks. Somewhere around early summer of season 4, they started transitioning to the 2-week patches we have now. I remember this very well because Rito employees used this as an excuse to lie to us about the Sona "rework." We customers complained that she was on PBE for literally half the duration of other reworks(only 4 weeks vs the standard 8 weeks.) Fearless then publicly lied to us, saying she was on PBE for "2 cycles," the same as other reworks, but intentionally ignored the fact Rito had just changed over to 2-week cycles: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/TUGkgEhf-sonas-rework-discussion-thread?comment=0007000000030000000000000000 Considering Fearless' sole goal was to dumpster Sona, he didn't need time to test the 3 dozen nerfs he did to her and he publicly admitted his main goal was the visual updates anyways, kit changes were literally an afterthought. He said the moment those visuals were finished, he pushed Sona to Live in whatever state.

Risk of Fate8 votes

These are the things I love to watch and I feel bad for Ghostcrawler, especially when he comments about basmenting and one-tricks. Now, I love Ahri as much as the next weeb, but I love about a dozen other champions or so, some people wouldn't even imagine. A few are Kayle Evelynn Amumu all of whom don't have that many skillshots and are point and hit/Area of no escape abilities.

I'd rather have the game be fun than a straight 50% across all levels, challenge makes you a better player. Proof of this is by playing strategy or fighting games, especially fighting where all characters are balanced with some minor differences, yet those who put in the time to learn can overcome those walls.

RiotGhostcrawler6 votes

I would like to know your insight around the balancing of mobility champs and how it relates to damage (burst and wave clear.)

From my stand point it seems mobility isn't a factor when determining how much damage a champs should do.

Burst and mobility are almost as hard to balance as long range and mobility. It's okay to have champions with burst and mobility as long as they do have actual weaknesses somewhere else, and sometimes we definitely err on not giving them enough weaknesses. Having great wave clear is just another really useful strength. I'm honestly not as worried about the mobility arms race as I am the wave clear arms race.

I'd love it if you could take a moment to talk a little about the specifics of how you keep these concepts in mind when doing design, and a bit about how you prioritize them when they threaten each other: a case where a cool ability that increases Mastery and Meaningful Choice might come at the expense of Clarity, for example.

There isn't a hierarchy to the design values and sometimes you definitely have to sacrifice one to another. The trick is just to do this deliberately. If you know you are reducing the clarity of a particular feature, you're still way ahead of the game than forgetting to even look at clarity.

For ease of reference (although I'm sure you have this handy and/or off the top of your head), the six criteria you outlined are Mastery, Meaningful Choice, Counterplay, Teamplay, Clarity, and Evolution. I'm especially interested in what you consider Evolution in this context.

Evolution in this context means that League will change over time. Sometimes this is because of players. Many times it is because of developers. We don't want a static game, and we don't think you guys do either. We will continue to make new champions for example, knowing that this will hurt game balance in the short term. We will continue to iterate on those systems (we've talked a lot about runes lately) that we think could be a lot better.

Why do you think it's bad if a player mainly plays one champion?

A lot of the fun of the game is experimentation - trying new things, seeing what works, learning from that, and trying new things. When you main one champion you get a lot better at that for that champion. You know Vi's damage per level so well that you can make decisions about when to level something out of order or skip an item or whatever. But you run the risk that if Vi ever falls out of meta, or we update her in a way you don't like, or you start playing with a friend who enjoys the same lane that you do, you may not have many options. At the extreme case, maybe you quit League rather than pick up another champion. We know (from a lot of the surveys I mentioned in the talk) that players who play more champions tend to enjoy League more and play it for more years. But don't get me wrong - nobody is "playing the game wrong" if they just really love a particular champion. I just wish the game (and especially Ranked) didn't push everyone so hard to playing so many games on the same champ.

As mentioned in your last paragraph, you talk about shifting philosophies between old ideas and newer ones. How often do ya sit down and simply talk about your current design philosophies and see if they still hold water for today.

On average, I'd say we talk about it every 6-12 months. I don't think you need to reexamine something that high level more frequently than that. But you should consider it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of them changed over time.

Put another way, to what degree are potentially returning viewers (who may have been away from the game for a year+, but want to pay attention to worlds for example) taken into account when making design decisions?

We understand that it's hard for someone who hasn't been super involved to get back into League either as a player or a viewer. However, we worry that if we focused too much on their experience that we might make mistakes that make the game less fun for currently engaged League players or viewers. In other words, returning people are really important, but currently engaged people are even more important.

Keevalroy8 votes

Having great wave clear is just another really useful strength. I'm honestly not as worried about the mobility arms race as I am the wave clear arms race.

So that explains why mobility creep is out of control, getting worse, and still not being addressed after years of reassurance that Riot is concerned with it - it's not a priority after all...or is that just your personal opinion and I'm generalizing? A bit tinfoil hat-y, but I'd go as far as believing that despite what Riot has been saying all this time, they actually want the mobility to continue creeping over time because, as you pointed out in the presentation, you want to keep spectators entertained, and what's more entertaining than champions flying across the map and obnoxiously dashing through the lane, exploding when they come in contact with another champ from the also out of control power creep?

SirLapse1 votes

{quoted}

So that explains why mobility creep is out of control, getting worse, and still not being addressed after years of reassurance that Riot is concerned with it - it's not a priority after all...or is that just a personal opinion and I'm generalizing?

Mobility creep was definitely worse in older seasons when buying boots was a must or you were just done. Now people complete first item before they think about boots usually. There weren't that many champions with a gap closer, much less champions with an escape of some sort and Riot repeatedly released champions that "encouraged" the mobility creep. I remember Kha'Zix being a primary complaint around that time. Damage creep is much more noticeable and recent if anything due to keystones.

Though I think it's better to mention where mobility is being an active issue on which champions, since the concept itself is more balanced nowadays even if it may seem obnoxious at times. People also have VERY different definitions of what "mobility" is on the boards too.

Keevalroy7 votes

Now people complete first item before they think about boots usually. There weren't that many champions with a gap closer, much less champions with an escape of some sort and Riot repeatedly released champions that "encouraged" the mobility creep.

They don't need boots when gapclosers, escapes, dashes, blinks, and "oops" buttons are being shoved into every kit in order to compete with their freshly released creeped-to-hell champions. It should be said that I don't necessarily have a vendetta against mobility, rather the shoehorned or extraneous mobility like Martial Poise, Ahri's Q speed, ward hopping in general, etc. These types of things aren't needed, and cause problems with game health and balance for those champions they belong to, and those who have to fight against them.

Though I think it's better to mention where mobility is being an active issue on which champions, since the concept itself is more balanced nowadays even if it may seem obnoxious at times.

I strongly disagree that the concept of mobility is more balanced, otherwise it wouldn't be crammed into new kits and reworks all the time just to be able to keep up with the other hyper-mobile champions would it? It being obnoxious is all the more reason to hit it sooner rather than later.

Emmy Cha0s6 votes

A lot of the fun of the game is experimentation - trying new things, seeing what works, learning from that, and trying new things. When you main one champion you get a lot better at that for that champion. You know Vi's damage per level so well that you can make decisions about when to level something out of order or skip an item or whatever. But you run the risk that if Vi ever falls out of meta, or we update her in a way you don't like, or you start playing with a friend who enjoys the same lane that you do, you may not have many options. At the extreme case, maybe you quit League rather than pick up another champion. We know (from a lot of the surveys I mentioned in the talk) that players who play more champions tend to enjoy League more and play it for more years. But don't get me wrong - nobody is "playing the game wrong" if they just really love a particular champion. I just wish the game (and especially Ranked) didn't push everyone so hard to playing so many games on the same champ.

You CLAIM there is no "wrong way" to play League, but you contradict yourself by heroicizing having a diverse champ pool. Then you imply that if a teammate wants your lane, that you can't play your champ in a different role. Isn't this inherently admitting Rito enforces the meta, despite constant claims that you do not?

Then you speak very lightly of the customers your company has INTENTIONALLY led to quit the game because you ruined their champion. Your job is to keep customers interested in your game, but you're forcing them to play how YOU want them to. You're doing exactly that right now as you sit here and try to convince players to do things they frankly don't want to. That's not how a business works, you don't know what we want better than us, yet that's constantly how you act and speak, never listening to what we have to say.

If you changed a champion in a way that has caused 99.99% of their playerbase to abandon that character and/or quit the game, isn't that an inherently failed rework? If the champ's popularity is lower than pre-"rework," if their curve of balance is less healthy than pre-"rework," isn't that inherent proof of a failed rework? Why are you continuing to ignore these issues and refusing to revert changes, let alone even just opening discussion with complaints?

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