##Disclaimer : i'm not an official designer, as a matter of fact, i have worked only on very few specific games that aren't as deep as LoL is my own "gamedesign" experience rely on serious games for neuroscience research. ###Tldr (yes for 2 lines) : i am not a professional.

I have been studying Many game studio's general choices lately (for the past 4 years actually) and learned SO MUCH from riot games and other studios , i can't tell you how gorgeous riot games is.

League of legends have a HUGE advantage over many other games : THERE IS A TON OF CONTENT AROUND IT How many time have you seen a youtube video about lol, then right after that video , you want to play lol ? That is something that kept LoL as the "apex predator" of game industry Riot understood that, we player did not.

To keep a game going , the content must feel fresh and new, the long time leavers (people who haven't played for a long time) must feel like all the problems have been corrected otherwise they might not comeback anymore (S4 league taught me that) and keeping things fresh for a long time is not a simple task.

So, on one side you have to keep the game spectacular so it's enjoyable to see and motivated content on the other side you have to keep it fresh so players don't get too bored

isn't there something else that add up to this ? ... YES THERE IS ? What could it be ? isn't that the PEAK END RULE ? ok , off with that cringy text, peak end rule is another key to solve riot's design choices and start actually understanding them.

i'll sum it up for you : If you have to rate positively or negatively an experience, you'll review the experience at it's peak and the experience at it's end; and hear me out : THE GAME LENGTH DOESN'T AFFECT PLEASURE FELT An intense 15 minutes game will be as potentially pleasurable as an intense 30 minute game.

This mean , that for a perfect experience, you should NEVER underestimate the end and always allow a peak. if a game is done by 10 minutes, you can pack your things, you've lost half the pleasure potential your game can provide.

The perfect game would therefore be :

1. Tense from the beginning until the end
2. Every player should experience a peak, a power spike
3. Spectacular so player would gladly replay again , show it , create new content
4. Fresh and not repetitive so players don't get bored.

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Now that you know what's important for the game objectively, let's analyse each thing :

• Updating stuff to make them both clear and spectacular ? Check
• Adding new champion an mechanics to the game to make it look fresh ? Check
• Making comebacks easier through new system and therefore avoiding guaranteed victory ? Check
• Lowering game duration by just enough so everyone statistically had its peak by the end ? Check

now , for each of these thing statements , a few thing can be re-discussed and you guessed it , those are my main parts.

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Updating stuff to make them both clear and spectacular :

Riot recently put an emphasis into reworking it's visual aspect through champion, this part is the hardest to talk about because making something spectacular is globally easy

however , LOL is a compromise land , and the usual way to make something more spectacular is known as PARTICLES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSAnfqrSZQA it's a cheap way of making something 100x cooler Wait... did i say cheap ? no particles do have a cost : CPU USAGE you don't trust me ? watch that clip from a kushala daora fight in MHW where you can see ANY computer DIE

Every time they add new particle they have to make sure it's not too much for old system , while remaining fairly spectacular for old computer specs This is hugely beneficial to them as it opens they potential customer range by a lot.

it's often underestimated by a lot of companies, but a lot of people can't afford a gaming PC

so making sure playing the game remain relevant on non expensive pc is the biggest point riot has scored over MANY MANY other companies (valve are still good at doing that tho)

I know it doesn't really have much things to do with design, but i felt like i couldn't leave that part without pointing that thing out.

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Adding new champion an mechanics to the game to make it look fresh

New design have shifted towards the freshness of concepts, and riot learned new lesson from thoses. What you have to understand is that now, they basically made everything interesting with the current set of rules and adding a generic champion is no longer possible.

something annoying when you are designing a champion is dooming other champions. By dooming other champions i mean when a champion basically has nothing fro him and is exceeded in every aspect of his kit He becomes a "shadow" of such champions , a trashtier , forgotten. some champions are know for being in that category : these champions always need to be reworked, and that's what they tried with the juggernaut rework.

the thing is , there are NO GUIDES for game balance. you can't even mathematically balance a game , because trust me it wouldn't feel balanced at all. Balance is solely based on experience but complexity just anhilate the possibility for balancing "inbalanced games" by simply looking at the numbers.

at the beginning they tried balancing it out only for new players, it failed miserably Then balancing for pro plays, it also failed then balance for everyone, it failed.

now they are trying powershifts. meaning instead of making champion easy or hard, just champion that you can optimize.

on top of that, they try changing rules

I'm gonna do a subpart for rule changes to explain what has worked, what havent Breaking lol basic rules need to be done certain ways to prevent frustration and powercreep Indirect rule break , that dont interact with players are loved Stats/gameplay restrictions are accepted quite well ( ) Gameplay element that make champion surpass their weakness, or break enemy defense are HATED (W bubble in general ) Gameplay element that break the game can be fun but need to be avoided or monitored (5 attack speed cap, ) element that require you to play a specific way are to avoid too , they are not liked

When adding champion they still try to make sure it remains spectacular, have it's own performance peak and its weaknesses that can be exploited by almost anyone

sometimes they fail miserably, and create overbuffed spells thinking about making it satisfying (to feel like you are powerful) R is a terstimony of that effect on its own

some champion are into a category that make them VERY VERY hard to change, those are They can be very spectacular because their peak feels incredible, and is amazing to watch, however , they might not be liked due their ability to compensate their weaknesses, even tho this is what makes them spectacular. i'm excited to see how is riot gonna act with these ones.

But as i presented to you through my view, the game kinda achieve it's objectives overall : keeping it's freshness

|state of freshness|Champions| |- |never feel like they are old| | |suiting perfectly the game while making it look fresh| | |Define a match by himself| | |Make the game boring simply by his pickrate| | |straight off forgotten| |

Note that taric still looks gorgeous visually, but NOTHING in his kit feel rewarding : what you see is far more impressive than what you actually get

as you can see if some champion feels better to play than another, you can kill freshness of the game

That's why balancing remain important. it's better to have champion strengths rotation rather then trying if a champion reach a high pickrate, you are going to kill that freshness That's why crit champion are going to be nerfed soon, because they are menacing the game's freshness.

##Reason why urf isn't a thing anymore is specifically that freshness Urf highlights that very well since the game was not balanced you would simply face the same champions over and over again Arurf is a better version because it** keeps that freshness** even with unbalanced matches Player would simply leave because they a bored , the games becomes boring : you face the same enemy, what ever you do , so you can't do what ever you want, therefore why do anything in the first place ? ===> leave the game

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Making comebacks easier through new system and therefore avoiding guaranteed victory

If a game is doomed by the champion select, people will simply leave way more games A game have to be worth playing

however , you can't both force player to not leave AND having situation where you can't do anything and you're left at enemy's mercy such a situation is boring for EVERYONE https://alifeofproductivity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/graphtwo-1.png

Maybe this one is better https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Challenge_vs_skill.svg/300px-Challenge_vs_skill.svg.png

Flow is something you try to reach absolutely because i keeps the game engaging and fun matchmaking and champion select have a huge impact on that

Champion should always have a way to win, if they don't , player when they will notice that will fall into an apathy immediately as their skill doesn't matter anymore so there is no more challenge and the required skill to solve that situation is 0 they just wait the end of the game.

The thing is champion select have a HUGE IMPACT ON THE GAME and from my estimation gameplan + Champion select is around 2/3 of what is determining your victory

meaning that is you want fair and equal game you have to have control over the player choice so you can balance the game better for him and give him harder opponent on easier matchup and the other way around.

but you can't do that in lol, meaning that i can tell that without deep and hard core game changes, there will always be a situation where a game is lost from the start.

Bounties, dragons and others casualties have been added to mitigate that effect that's why bounties are like that now.

https://imgur.com/jnRTEjC champion can be classified with 3 differents aspects on their kit

The mechanical demand (how hard is a champion to play) Usually those champion are loved by player since they usually are better at reaching flow (i did put riven in here due to her high skill demand, even though i know she require a little bit more)

Game knowledge (how much a champion rely on your gameknowledge) These champions are often the easiest to plays mechanically but require you to have a sturdy game-plan ans know how to adapt in order to succeed (i chose sivir because well she just counter the minions and therefore make the game 1000x harder in lane simply by her being nearby , if she plays well she can splitpush 2 lane by herself without much mechanical demand or anything)

Mind reading (how much you can answer enemy's decisions and predictions) usually those are the trickster champion, instead of going directly for the game itself , it's based on answering opponent's decision and making sure they cant win. I've spent months classifying every champion

so i can already tell you right now you are not even deep into lol game theory, however i'm not gonna go any deeper, the only thing you have to know is that champions naturally plays differently and counter others.

and one case is very interesting : when a "no brain" champion is naturally stronger than another champion that is hard to play :

vs

This is THE RIOT DILEMMA and why the game is not balanced :

• if you gut garen on that matchup , the game will be more balanced for riven BUT on the other hand , it will feel unfair for garen and the game won't be balanced because that matchup do not compensate rivens good matchups anymore.
• If you let garen win it will feel unfair for riven as with little to no skill, garen can completely annihilate that poor riven main

therefore in one case, game is more balanced in individual games, but less globally. or, game is doomed after champion select.

Some game avoided that dilemma by making every champion hard to play (Yeah , that's battlerite)

but the state of the game is a strange mix between the two. you can't make every game tense and have perfect unbalanced game-design yet riot is trying, so that is an interesting choice that i will be happy to monitor.

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Lowering game duration by just enough so everyone statistically had its peak by the end

That is what they have been changing last preseason. lowering game length by accelerating pace , but still allowing a few games to reach 6 items

Some champions have suffered a lot from game duration changes, usually early game champion as their peak window has been shortened.

other champion have surprisingly NOT benefited from turret changes which is weird since you would expect a champion that have aa turret execution that bypasses armor buff to become OP. but his inability to properly push the minion wave just threw him in the trash, the enormous changes to mana, his lack of minions damage on Q and "safe wave clear" made him impossible to play against assassins that have better clear than an aoe pve champion.

Insuring peaks is their next objective, and to be honest i have no idea if they even know it's a thing to have in the game

So next time you see a change ask yourself if it fits one of these category

• Keep the game fresh by adding content
• Reajusting peaks to ensure player experience
• Adjust fairness and avoid dead end
• Removing elements that makes game repetitive

I do not always agree with the direction they are taking, but i assume they do know what they are doing every time (even tho i'm pretty sure they only do know 69% of the time) overshooting is quite frequent and very few champion did not need huge changes after release

If you have any question about any change because you have no ide why it happened , feel free to ask , i'll answer it.

yes English is not my first language so there may and must still many grammar mistakes to correct , feel free to point these out int he comment