How does RIOT balance the game? How would you do it?

MadNoff·9/18/2018, 2:58:31 PM·1 votes·1,401 views

I am genuinely curious, I imagine it must be a difficult thing to do.

Do they take a predominantly micro/macro approach? Do they try to tweak a champion relative to another? or a class? or lane?

I always see threads about champs being overpowered. Recently it was ADCs; now it seems to be mid lane champions. The top seems more or less quiet. I'm curious as to what philosophy/ technical systems riot employs. Do they use econometric modeling to guide balancing decisions?

Also, I'm sure this community is loaded with experts in fields such as statistics, econometrics, actuarial science, mathematics etc. what do you guys think? Do you think an efficient and consistent model can be developed to guide balancing decisions in this game?

For the non-technical guys, how would you go about balancing the game?

6 Comments

Quiet Dude9/18/2018, 3:04:16 PM1 votes

If I made a game, Id be one of those “my way or the high way” kind of devs.

Its my vision, my creation, Id balance and do things as I please. Id take player suggestions every so often, but I know bowing to too many requests would make my players feel entitled that they have a say in how I make my game.

But that would mean I need to make my game free 2 play in order to justify my decisions, or Im going to have to cater to my customers demands. So if I needed revenue, Id sell cosmetics.

That way I can keep doing what I want and occassionally curve slightly to what players are looking for, without having to bend the knee to every asinine forum request.

zoliking9/18/2018, 8:36:48 PM1 votes

My balance suggestions (these are super subtle,but really good changes. Balance team, please take a look at them and implement them in, let's say, 25 minutes. I wanna see them at Worlds the latest):

Jinx's W should be a global.
Assassins should only do a new type of damage called "fun" damage. This would be shown with a pink bar under regular hp getting reduced. When it reaches 0, it resets to the same value as current hp.
Jinx's chompers should just immediately stun the nearest 3 enemies within 3000 units of distance.
Any player with "zoliking" in their name should start the game with 3000 extra gold.
Brand's abilities should be replaced with the following: Passive: "Fun Sized" - Brand is really tiny. He can be killed by any enemy stepping on him. Q: "Balloon Party" - An animation of 18 balloons blowing up and flying to the air is played at Brand's location. W: "Cake!" - A linear 500 unit skillshot, Brand throws a cake. If any champion (ally or enemy) is hit, their player's screen displays a splattered cake image overlay over the game for 1 second. You can mostly see through this. E: "Clowning" - Brand puts on a big red nose and fools around for 3 seconds. Any minions within 300 units get fascinated, group up in a circle around Brand and stop attacking anybody. R: "A Present from Uncle Brand" - Brand places a neatly wrapped birthday present on the ground. The next ally to pick it up will get a text message on the screen. If that champion is doing well they get a reinforcing message like "You are doing great!" or "Keep up the good work!". If the player is behind they get an encouriging message like "You can come back from this!" or "It's okay, buddy, you are still liked!".
Pyke's abilities should be replaced by the following: Passive: "Ghostly" - Pyke cannot deal damage or be dealt damage. He cannot use activated abilities of items. He also has no vision outside of what everybody else on his team can see. Q: "Through the Eyes of the Unseeing" - Pyke becomes invisible for 10 seconds. W: "Etherealness" - Pyke becomes able to move through terrain, obstacles, champions, monsters and minions. E: "Silence of the Grave" - Pyke's sound effects are supressed. R: "Army of the Dead" - Pyke summons an extra wave of ghost minions for each lane. These minions don't deal damage, don't block movement, die from one hit and are worth 0 gold, but they look super scary and menacing.
Any player with "oliki" in their summoner names gets a third slot for a summoner spell.
For every ten seconds a support spends in lane hiding behind their adc, they get a "tourist point". At 10 tourist points the player is booted and control of his champion is handed over to the adc.
Jinx's R should be an instant kill instead of an execute, just kills any enemies in the blast radius regardless of resistances or hp.
The gold cost of Stormrazor should be 1 lower.

RightClick McGee9/18/2018, 8:55:47 PM1 votes

I would make every right click champ absurdly op Tristana Fiora Jax Jinx Kayle MasterYi Nocturne Tryndamere Yasuo WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MORD BECAUSE I FINALLY WANT ONE OF MY FAVORITE (CONCEPTUALLY) CHAMPS GOOD Mordekaiser

AirKingNeo9/18/2018, 9:51:48 PM1 votes

Nerf broken shit (balanced around high elo), buff weak things, remove RNG, make the laning phase something that you can't bail out of, stop champions from being proplay only (like Aatrox, Galio, etc), remove and reduce things that just feel unfun (like the smallest krugs, they're just annoying), remove mechanics from a champion if they're too bloated, listen to constructive player feedback, and actually make changes in a timely manner.