Boards›Gameplay

This is highly concerning to me

chipndip1··2 votes·1,037 views

Do you think it’s a bad thing that there are champions who will never see pro play?

"Holistically, it’s a bad thing. By which I mean, if it were possible to achieve total champion parity from Bronze to pro, with very few trade-offs, then I’d choose it in a heartbeat.

The problem we have is to achieve that today would take a lot of trade-offs.

We use one set of tuning numbers for every League player, regardless of skill level. A game like basketball has different point lines, and a game like golf has different tee boxes, but League is virtually the same for everyone. A lot of the feedback we receive from players is about how a particular change won’t solve a balance issue at Challenger or Pro. But that’s not the focus.

So if you take a popular lower ELO champion like Garen and vow that he needs to be picked at pro, you could end up with a monster with a 65%+ winrate in Silver. You could do a big rework on him so that his winrate in Silver was around 50% and close to that for pro, but he might end up so mechanically complex that he isn’t as popular as he is today (or more likely, probably wouldn’t stay at 50% in Silver for long).

There are a bunch of other factors that affect pro play. For example, as I mentioned recently, it’s challenging to tune any champion who has part of their power tied up in AI minions so that they are viable for pro without stomping non-pro. Channeled ults are something pros tend to always interrupt. Weaknesses aren’t necessarily weaknesses when you have teammates who can cover them up, versus a solo queue experience where you may be on your own. Skill shots, combos, and anything timing-related tends to be far more reliable in higher skill brackets.

TLDR: We do value pro champion diversity, but not at the expense of everything else.

(We’re also thrilled that the 10 ban change seems to have led to higher champion diversity in pro so far.)"

Translation:

We're just gonna ignore the fact that some champions aren't worth mastering while spouting romanticized lines about hardcore gaming and diversity. We'll use bans as a band-aid for this decision.

22 Comments

ScissorsNstuff3 votes

it is not a bad thing. That a champion sees pro play is not necessarily a good thing. They aren't picking champs for how wonderfully balanced they are

chipndip11 votes

"In a team game, some champs aren't worth mastering. This is fine because having a large amount of the roster being viable at a higher level of play...isn't exactly a good thing".

ScissorsNstuff1 votes

What they really need to be focused on is what champs synergize with what champs

when Soraka is strong her synergies are strong. Back when she could still give mana Urgot saw play at tournament levels.

What we really need, in other words, is not to shove as many champs into high level viability as we can but to make sure that every champ has a camp they can be used for. A viable champ they can synergize with. Before you would build teams around the adc which was just strong as shit but people cry a lot and don't want the adc to be too strong and kill tanks. So now its probably harder for every champ to have some synergetic access into high level play.

Shen works great in map control comps. TwistedFate is strong when shen is strong TahmKench is used in the same comp type but because tahm exists now its harder for the other two to be allowed to be strong.

If any one of these three is reasonably strong there is a team comp for the other two, maybe together or maybe not together. Not every champ has to be viable, they just need something to keep them useful

Shen also combos with brutal mobile engagers Vi and sexy hawt playmakers that are better than all other champs Ahri (no bias whatsoever #AhriFancultBanner ) and if those champs are strong then shen can be strong and shen's syergies are thus going to see some use here and there.

Basically what we need is to spend less time talking about individual champs and chart out synergies and where we want to go from there

chipndip11 votes

...but this logic, if you REALLY follow through with this logic, is what breeds diversity in the first place, assuming you craft the kits well enough.

ScissorsNstuff1 votes

Unfortunately there is a condition where if you follow this logic you wont get diversity.

Ideally

  1. create champion
  2. testing
  3. get feedback
  4. live
  5. get feedback
  6. patch champion and go back to step 2 unless everything is great then go to step 7
  7. work on the next champion

reality

  1. create champion
  2. sift through all the whining about said unreleased champion that threatens your profits
  3. testing
  4. get false reports and whining
  5. get the actually important feedback but miss some things
  6. send it to live
  7. receive more whining
  8. calm down the whiners long enough to get actual feedback
  9. patch champion but not too much because you'll get more whining, trolling, and other stupidity
  10. wait for the patch to settle in and finally get useful results on the small patch
  11. work on and release something else to fund your efforts to reach step 13
  12. repeat step 9 and 10 until you seem to get them to stop whining and you learn what it is that actually makes them happy whether it balances the game or not
  13. Slowly try to balance what you fixed while retaining whatever it is they wanted so you can get results in a timely manner or conclude that you cant balance it because you don't have the time and money then go to step 14
  14. write up a report on the game state then go to step one if they seem to accept it, if they throw a fit then go back to step 9 either now or much later. You can skip on to step 1 if you just nerf it into oblivion or just put patching it more on the backburner
chipndip11 votes

...you know that honestly puts a new perspective on things, but that's the community being ass more than anything. Still, the logistics of dealing with backlash is a good point to make. Question is is it really ok that champ diversity is at an extreme low point, though?

ScissorsNstuff1 votes

I think its more important to ask, if we aren't working on champion diversity then what IS being worked on.

If I had to guess they are still in the process of choosing the game pacing. If you allow the game to go for over an hour champs like

Anivia Teemo KogMaw

will get really strong

if you shorten matches by letting tanks get killed faster or something then things like

Varus JarvanIV Jayce

apparently get stronger.

they are nerfing damage and buffing defense in masteries. I think the game pacing is something they are experimenting with. Longer games are nice but keep in mind that the League of Legends "brand" is made unique by its unusually "aggressive" pacing compared to other similar games. Note that "aggressive" doesn't necessarily mean fast paced. But a team fight might last all of 5 seconds in some cases in a damage heavy meta before its more or less decided who won it (in higher level play) This can be ok but this is a bit aggressive compared to other games, this one often shoves you into the action really fast.

BlackFlux1 votes

Yeah. idk what you were expecting :/ chances are if you play comp,you play to win. and in top tiers by any means necessary. kinda like that in every game. MMORPG end game skill macros,RTS building order, certain monster games stat builds even when it take weeks to get one thing.( or cheat them in. which is oddly allowed or just ignored... ) or straight up cheating. people do that a lot kinda sad... cheating even when not needed. ever seen a aimbot mercy in OW? yeah... ever seen a Teemo. I am sure you have and it was a horror having that 1300 dmg one dart then the aftermath of another 500 damage from things like item 3151 item 3116 and the general stuff.

Umbral Regent2 votes

Just because a champion isn't a pro-pick doesn't mean they're not worth mastering. People place their own value in certain champions, and even if in the higher tiers your particular favorite champion isn't good to play, that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn the ins-and-outs of that champion and enjoy playing them.

And they're not ignoring the fact or using 10 bans as a band-aid, either. They're telling us up-front: "We don't want to sacrifice all the other facets of our game just so more champions ignored by professional players show up in pro play" - and they're even telling us, "10 bans has given a suitable ground for pro players to have more diverse picks".

But, you're probably just going to gloss over what I'm saying and say more stuff about Riot ignoring some champions in favor of pro-picks.

chipndip11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Umbral Regent,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NMguhMMr,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-02-26T01:42:51.006+0000)

Just because a champion isn't a pro-pick doesn't mean they're not worth mastering. People place their own value in certain champions

Stopped right there (I didn't, but I can easily make my point with this alone). This is supposed to be a hardcore game for hardcore gamers, right? I'm not necessarily upset with Riot because not every champ will be picked in the pros. This happens all the time in competitive gaming. I'm upset that this is OBVIOUSLY a cop-out so that some champs can remain nothing more than "training wheels" champs. Once again, having simpler champs is FINE, but, outside the realm of casual gaming, it isn't when it's at the expense of a player's growth in comparison to other possible picks in the game, otherwise it's literally the smartest decision to outright ignore that character. You COULD play that character, but it'd be 300% more beneficial to pick someone else instead. For a hardcore company all about hardcore gamers, the fact they can so easily say "Garen players...you're fucked" is mind-boggling to me.

Umbral Regent1 votes

I don't think that League of Legends is strictly a hardcore game for hardcore gamers. There's tons of casual players out there - a good lump some playing Normals, a fair few playing Ranked, and a good few more playing ARAM or Bots. To strictly say that League of Legends is supposed to be a hardcore game is basically saying that half of the game itself doesn't exist, and the same for half of the playerbase.

On top of that, "training wheels" champions still have a reason to gain mastery with - learning mechanics being the largest one. That's why I'm trying to master Xin Zhao and Warwick - because they're effectively teaching me how to better jungle. Are they big picks? No, not likely. And that they're teaching me how to better jungle, it shows that these "training wheels" champions are anything but at the expense of player growth, they're there to teach newer players how to play more effectively.

And, Riot clearly isn't a hardcore company all about hardcore gamers, considering the fact that they reiterate several times that they balance around both professional and casual play. And I find it highly unlikely that anything they say can be interpreted as "x champion players, you're fucked" when they're pouring a lot of time and effort to make sure that champions get balanced for both ends of play, making them appealing picks for multiple reasons.

chipndip11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Umbral Regent,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NMguhMMr,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2017-02-26T02:19:12.339+0000)

I don't think that League of Legends is strictly a hardcore game for hardcore gamers.

Stopped right there again. That's like, one of the main things this game was founded on, and Riot totes it around like champions. The basis of this whole post is off.

Now, is it so hardcore that it's meant to alienate anyone else? No, but still the point stands.

Umbral Regent1 votes

Your point is taken from subtracting basically everything in a post except for a few given statements and not caring what all else is said. Riot has basically been contradicting you since before you even posted this, as they reiterate multiple times that they balance for both the hardcore and the casual.

Insert "stopped right there again again" and an arbitrary remark showing you've once again decided not to read more than a sentence in and a general lack of interest in having a realistic argument.

Now that I'm typing at a point I know you're not going to read, but probably are going to still going to clip out to act like you are, you never really had a safely arguable point in the first place. All Champions are worth mastering regardless of how frequently they're played at high or low skill levels, and you're just trying to act like Riot is avoiding talking about stuff that they are, very clearly, actively discussing.

chipndip11 votes

  • I actually read the entirety of the first post where I said "Stopped right there". This time, no, but last time, yes.

  • In regards to the REST of the last post: I can have a game where someone's simple to learn, but rewarding to master. Someone like Ryu in Capcom games. He's usually not the top tier character, but learning him allows you to be a legitimate contender in Capcom's fighting games. Daigo, an incredibly accomplished pro fighting game player, pretty much mains Ryu in every game he's featured in, yet Ryu is basically the main "training wheels" character of ALL CAPCOM FIGHTING GAMES, let alone Street Fighter (in the sense that Ryu's style is sort of "copy-pasted" onto other "main characters" in other Capcom fighting franchises to the point where there's a large array of similarities, so that anyone that just needs a character to get into the swing of playing a Capcom-style fighting game will have one to use). Simple shouldn't have to mean "unrewarding", but in this community no one cares that that's what it comes down to half the time. Not all the time, but a good deal of the time.

  • Don't make assumptions about me.

Umbral Regent1 votes

I was initially intent to just ignore whatever you came up with next, since I normally don't like responding more than three times, but this warranted a response:

Why on God's green earth are you comparing League of Legends to Capcom Fighters? Have you ever heard of the phrase "comparing apples to oranges"? Because that is exactly what you just did.

And that completely ruined your point. You cannot raise that "beginner champions are totally unrewarding to master" in League of Legends and then cite Capcom Fighters as a reasonable comparison. From what all I can recall, and I'm pretty sure this hasn't changed: Street Fighter has always been 1v1 2-D fights, with very complex mechanical combos and more.

League of Legends is more than 1v1, it's 3v3/5v5/6v6 - with most of the complexity found in Capcom Fighter games being eschewed for something simpler with its own mechanical nuance - you don't have a massive array of abilities and combos (albeit abilities do combo into each other fairly well in some cases), and there are many, many more variables in League of Legends than in Street Fighter games.

And another thing you pointed out for me: The Capcom fighting games apparently most other characters get a copy/paste moveset of Ryu. Riot, however, tries to ensure that all of their champions are as diverse in ability kit as possible, trying to either erase or, at the very least, greatly minimize ability overlap. And because of this, there are some Champions who, because of the complexity and skill-input/power-output ratio, as well as other factors such as Champion synergy and counterplay, get picked more often in Pro Play over other Champions.

Even further, I have to reiterate my point: Just because it's a training champion does not mean it's completely useless and unrewarding to try to master them, ESPECIALLY if you're new to the game which you vaunt so heavily as a hardcore-exclusive experience.

So, once again: Why are you comparing two completely separate genres of games to prove a point you should have already realized had no solid ground to stand on?

chipndip11 votes

If DotA2 can stand to have a large variety of competitively viable characters, so can the biggest competitive game in the market.

But that's a side note. I'm comparing SF's mechanics to League. I'm comparing philosophies to League, which is fair game. If I make a competitive racing game, for example, why would I make a character that's absolutely useless to play outside of playing the tutorials or "learning how to turn"? There needs to be a bigger picture to why I'd play a character to begin with than just "I'm learning".

We can look at Mario Kart for an example. In Mario Kart Wii, they added bikes, right? Issue was that inward drifting bikes (ones that looked like racing bikes) took turns way faster and could pop wheelies on straights for a speed boost, which stacked with mini-turbo boosts. Result was that even though karts had better mini-boosts and higher natural top speed, inward drifting bikes had easier, sharper turns and could pop wheelies on straights to move faster than karts. Thus, people would just spam "Mach Bike" variants (usually medium or large) all over ranked. You could barely find someone that wasn't using it.

How did Nintendo fix this? They removed the wheelie mechanic and nerfed their drifting so that, even though they take faster turns initially, if the turn is sharp enough, they end up on the outside of the turn. Some stages had REALLY sharp turns where these bikes would now just fly off the track if they didn't slow down while drifting, and other stages didn't have enough decent turns to merit picking them in the first place. The point is that even in a casual game like Mario Kart, a great developer like Nintendo knows there's no point to multiple options if one option or set of options beats out all the other ones. This is the point I was getting across when comparing this game to SF, and I was saying that "needing an easier character" isn't a good excuse during that process.

Going back to the SF thing...who the hell cares about the genre? Competitive gaming is about the mindset. The logic of "I can win easier playing A, so I'll pick A" doesn't care about genre. There's a balancing act between that logic and "I like B, so I'll pick B" that game devs attempt to perfect. LoL has steadily done a worse job of this, though. I gave you a clear example of a franchise that works with this logic in mind, and has for a long time, and you brush it off because it's a fighting game. The point isn't the game's mechanics. The point is the mindset.

Side note: I said "They include one Ryu-ish fighter in their games", not "Half the roster in every Capcom fighter plays like Ryu". Big difference. To be fair, though, there's quite a few "Ryu-variant" characters in the core SF games themselves.

BlackFlux1 votes

Galio Mordekaiser so much potential....[zombie-nunu-bummed]

jaymc11301 votes

The problem is the fact that we have sooooo many damn champs. There's only so many unique things a champ can do and most of them double up on unique traits creating a situation where two champs who do similar things will always have one of those champs do it better.

The problem is basically unsolvable because they just kept releasing more and more champs.

chipndip11 votes

If DotA2 can do it, why can't we?

Not even that. If DotA2 can do it, why can't we even scratch half of their diversity?

jaymc11301 votes

{quoted}

If DotA2 can do it, why can't we?

Not even that. If DotA2 can do it, why can't we even scratch half of their diversity?

Game complexity. The greater the complexity the more balance levers there are. League is far far less complex.

chipndip11 votes

I mean, MOBAs aren't games that can afford to not release new characters and features. There needs to be SOME way to circumvent this issue so that more of the roster can be worth picking at one time.

As it stands, I can barely call this game's metas "metas" anymore. It's just Riot jiggling the game around so something else is "op as shit" when we're tired of the last thing. It's not balancing more than it's cycling things in and out, and when I see some things never leave and other things never enter, it gets me feeling some type of way.

jaymc11301 votes

{quoted}

I mean, MOBAs aren't games that can afford to not release new characters and features. There needs to be SOME way to circumvent this issue so that more of the roster can be worth picking at one time.

As it stands, I can barely call this game's metas "metas" anymore. It's just Riot jiggling the game around so something else is "op as shit" when we're tired of the last thing. It's not balancing more than it's cycling things in and out, and when I see some things never leave and other things never enter, it gets me feeling some type of way.

That's exactly the model riot has been using for 5 seasons: rotating balance. The problem with so many niche champions is that there is always one that is best at that niche. When the stated mission is cyclic balance (which is stupid in the first place) and the game isn't very complex but has a ton of similar options this is what happens.

You can either make the game more complex (riot has been dumbing the game down for casual players for 3 or 4 years now, so clearly this they won't do) or you eliminate some of the useless, redundant options.

There's really no other way to solve a systemic problem of this fashion but to change the system, which riot won't do.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by chipndip1

So lemme get this straight...again...
Gameplay253 comments
185
votes
Assassins shouldn't be able to just 1v2 freely. Stop asking for it.
Gameplay211 comments
170
votes
It's kind of bullshit that Ryze gets this much attention
Gameplay178 comments
145
votes
I seriously meant "Tell people to upgrade their trinket"...
Gameplay50 comments
144
votes
If you frame champ balance like this, stop talking about champ balance
Gameplay64 comments
122
votes
Honestly: "Scaling into being unstoppable" isn't an acceptable game play niche
Gameplay130 comments
122
votes