Environment cards : How to keep the game fresh, forever.

@RIOT,

Every season we face this problem. The optimal way to play the game is learned. Unlike the leading competitor, two optimal ways do not coexist. The champions that are best are learned, the timing and targets of the macro moves of both teams are learned. The riddle of "how to win" is solved, and the game becomes stale.

And such, after every season you have to re-balance. Not for the sake of solving a problem, but for the sake of changing "the riddle of winning" such that the old solution - the old, best, team composition, the best things to do early mid and late, the way to handle team fights and what champions have the best properties needed - changes and the players must re-learn.

The process is manual, and therefore it takes much labor from you. And if you focus on something else, the game will lose some appeal and novelty.

What if there can be a method, in which you can change this riddle from game to game? to be set up once, and then it would make the riddle of winning different each game anew? I wish to propose to you such a method.

What is the big difference between season 3 and the current season? it is mostly the economy of the game. Whether champions have gold passively, or do not, whether they must stay long in the jungle to farm, or are free to gank, whether they have alternatives for generating income, or not. This is the core difference between the seasons and why we've seen the following changes:

Utility Tank junglers -> power-farming carry junglers power-farming carry junglers -> ganking assassin junglers. carry tops -> tank tops. utility supports -> mage supports

All of these result from economic changes to the game. I.E. the way that gold, xp, mana, hp and other resources are available in the game. For instance consider the following change to the game: mid lane now "needs" blue buff to clear and push the wave. This creates a real game play change in the decisions of mid lane and jungle, and also unlocks blue buff as an important "to fight over" mini objective.

These changes each creates a distinct shift in the priorities, strategies and "viable" champions. If they are stacked together, the number of possibilities is much more than any player can learn.

I propose a way of changing these variables from game to game. And here is my proposal:

1 Each player is given a selection of changes, that he can put into the economy of the game. Out of these changes the player chooses one. Not all selections are available, this is a randomized part with a "choose 1 out of 3" or a different method of limited chance. 2 Prior to champion ban and select (to make players play around and benefit from these changes, rather than picking generalists), the players alternate in layering the economic changes to the game. 3 Then the pick and bans occur.

This method means that each game has a different economy. And the picks and bans for each game, must exploit this different economy to the best of the player's understanding. The end result is: your seasonal balance changes are done for you, with you only having to set up the system once.

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Here are some ideas for the changes:

LANE ECONOMY CHANGES 1 minion gold increase / decrease (accelerate / decelerate scaling) 2 minion spawn time increase / decrease (enable more or less roaming) 3 minion HP / MR / armor changes (per lane) (make wave clear more or less difficult) 4 poor / rich lane (that lane gets more or less gold for minions) (straight up buff a lane to throw a wrench into things)

JUNGLE ECONOMY 5 changes to spawn timers (change effectiveness of counterjungling / power farming strats) 6 changes to camp gold (change effectiveness of counterjungling / power farming strats) 7 catch-up XP reduced / increased (change risk/reward of gank / farm decision making) 8 Smite HP recovery reduced / increased 9 half-cleared camps do not respawn and gain massive HP (counterjungling perk) 10 changes to jungle item mana / hp recovery rate. (junglers getting low in jungle, shift power to laners) 11 changes to smite VS champions (see 10) 12 changes to how smite interacts with camps
13 increase / decrease blue and red buff effects 14 remove skuttle crab / plants

SUPPORT ECONOMY 15 remove gold generation item (s) 16 change gold generation of support items 17 remove trinkets, bring back wards and oracle (return boots+wards style of gameplay for support)

GLOBAL 18 change passive gold generation (reduce passive scaling, more power to skill expression early) 19 increase / decrease mana renegenration 20 increase / decrease cost / effect of potions 21 changes to kill gold amount and distribution

etc etc etc.