Yo boards, lets talk balance

Kai Guy·Apr 6, 2018·44 votes·8,060 views

Don't get mislead, this is a discussion about what is balance, not the games current state of balance.

What do you define as a balance game state and what do you want it to accomplish?

My Bias. I don't want a "truly" balanced game, its a moba, something needs to stand out a bit. To get to a state where any comp and start enjoys a 50% win rate with any mix of champions in matches of similar skill I feel we would have to gut skill ceilings and skill floors and player knowledge becomes devalued. For me, I want to see a ever shifting flow of champions in and out of viability as well as champions who can do well in low elo but struggle upper mmr or struggle low mmr and do well upper elos.

I want some imbalance keeps game evolving and shifts to new metas. I don't want Broken balance or perfect balance, both result in stagnation. That's my view, by all means your welcome to agree/disagree and I would enjoy hearing why.

Edit, I know its easy to do but please refrain from silently down voting folks because you disagree with them. Let them speak their piece in peace yea? Down vote low quality and low effort. I encourage yall engage with opposing views with your stance and the logic behind it. I'd very much like to discourage discussions like this from becoming an echo chamber.

142 Comments

RiotRiot MapleNectarApr 7, 201824 votes

Really enjoying reading your thoughts on this topic guys :) Way to have a healthy discussion!

Death by GlamourApr 7, 20186 votes

I really dont mean to come across as disrespectful but talk is cheap.

How about you guys start participating in the discussions or start some of your own amd maybe just maybe actually listen to our concerns rather than blowing smoke up our rear ends

ChermorgApr 7, 20189 votes

Have you looked at red tracker, they're literally always posting and engaging...

AMYS GRAVEApr 7, 20182 votes

It has been years since anyone from riot has engaged in a back and forth conversation about anything gameplay related. It has all been riot preaching from on high about the game direction without listening to the community at all.

Sp33d Zer0Apr 8, 20185 votes

Did you miss the entire Quinn thread last month?

Pokemonred200Apr 8, 20182 votes

He also missed the Rengar and Leblanc threads from the beginning of the year/that is still going on, as well.

Death by GlamourApr 9, 20182 votes

maybe just maybe actually listen to our concerns rather than blowing smoke up our rear ends

ChermorgApr 9, 20184 votes

Sorry, where are they not listening to your concerns? Any proof of that? Because I see them engaging and listening to the community all the time. Them not doing things the way you would is the very reason they work for the balance department and you don’t - to put it quite bluntly. They’re willing to listen to others - but they don’t always follow what a few community members scream about.

Maybe you should make a well thought out thread identifying a problem you see in game and why it’s a problem, with data. Most of your threads are short one-line thread with no real discussion potential. You make a claim/statement, provide no evidence, and then usually say “yeah it’s right” in some way.

AMYS GRAVEApr 9, 20181 votes

I can't even get over how out of touch your responses in this thread are. Lots of people used to make well reasoned posts as you describe but after years of being ignored those posts stopped because you can only talk to the void for so long before you realize the futility of trying to talk to what amounts to a brick wall.

ChermorgApr 9, 20184 votes

Really? Ignored? I don’t know if you actually look at the gameplay boards and the dev corner threads. Meddler runs multiple megathreads per week. Maple and Repertoir come to gameplay to engage good threads almost every day. Where are they ignoring you?

It seems you are ignoring the fact they are actually responding just because you don’t like that they don’t accept your word as law.

AMYS GRAVEApr 10, 20181 votes

Sorry, where are they not listening to your concerns? Any proof of that?

I took the time and effort to look up and source the proof you asked for... any response? Just going to stick you head in the sand and ignore the problems? Sticking with willful ignorance? What's your move here? Its your right to disrespect my time and effort in responding to you if you choose but in so doing you're only making my point that moderation shuts down/retreats from discussion when it doesn't suit them.

ChermorgApr 10, 20181 votes

I'm not going to give you the time of day when you start taking things out of context and prove you have no desire to accept you may be wrong. You have provided absolutely nothing but statements taken out of context and that do not paint anywhere near a full picture; the outliers so to speak. You have blatantly ignored the counterproof in front of your face - Maple, Meddler, Repertoir, and more.

I'm not going to give you the validation of a direct response to any of that.

AMYS GRAVEApr 12, 20181 votes

Maybe you'd like to see Maples latest attempt to put down a frustrated boards user instead of engaging with constructive posts. Its not like these frustrated players are people with legitimate complaints.

You don't have to give me a direct response, you can just keep silently downvoting as if that helps discourse on these boards, but i could keep replying with constant examples of the disrespect for these boards by both rioters and mods such as yourself.

Death by GlamourApr 9, 20182 votes

no dude they are willing to take the easy road rather than deal with the glaring issues with in this game

spoke about this issue many times over the years I'm not going any further in this post.

JmmanApr 10, 20181 votes

In relation to this topic perhaps an interesting one would be is the following:

Do people view balance by position, arch type (adc, tank, mages etc), or by champs?

It seem to be that Riot is looking by positions/arch types rather than champs for agency and players are looking at by champs rather than positions/ arch types. Because the top 3 champs in each position might be balance vs each other. (see pro games) Then once you look at each position/ arch type the champs aren't remotely close to balance.

put a cylinder on the table on its side. Put one light source from the front and it projects a circle on the wall. But the light source from the side and it will project a rectangle on the wall. Half the room yells circle the other half yells rectangle. But the truth is both are wrong.

So is the game balanced.... yes by positions but No not by the champs within those position or arch types.

Since riot has yet to define Balance or the power levels of champs on a quantified scale (relation power on a number scale) it seem to me that this isn't a important issue to you. Look at the power level of new champs to older ones.

Often times Balance can relate to having fun or not during the game. I enjoy watching the academy games 100% over the pro games. They started with Sion and other things first that made it to the pro scene. They also play on the current patch rather than older ones that the meta is set already. They are trying new things and difference champs. Watch a LCS game and then an academy game (this is to the players not riot) then you will understand that the choking unbalance of positions and champs are the whole issue atm. Same champs, BS power levels and able to snowball out of control leads to boring game play. Expression of the play skills through the champs they like leads to exciting, positive and involved game play.

But first and foremost YOU need to balance position and champs balance. And is there a difference and how so. This will also help with moving champs from positions.

rant: You will get more people watching all games if Academy games spread them throughout the week. Heck let them play Mon, Wed, Fri. They are all at the houses. But a camera to let use watch them. Show the games. Put some of the announcers with them. (They actually have great personality that work together. Some act dumb, a$$holish, smart, etc etc. Great together. Sure they are newish to it. But wow some serious potential there. They Civic War act/game was really put together well. Props from someone that always bashes you guys. I have fun watching them. I can log on and try what they tried. We are on the same patch. This is your golden goose that should be "balanced" around. This is the middle of the pros and solo que.

Lastly....... Fiddles rules

Little PadawanApr 10, 20181 votes

Every Janna main running away from this topic in

Risk of FateApr 6, 201817 votes

[deleted]

TehNACHOApr 6, 20183 votes

Huh, funny. I have the exact opposite philosophy. While a few weaker generalists like Ahri should exist who can handle a variety of situations not terribly, we should embrace the fact that we have so many champions by differentiating them and specializing them for different situations. Ultimately this would mean you can't pick any champion into nearly any composition and do consistent with them because maybe they're a Juggernaut and your team needed the mobility and Utility of an Engage Tank or so on and so on.

Automated RivenApr 6, 201822 votes

I disagree 1000 percent. I think that teamcomps and synergy should be of far higher importance and every champion should have 1 thing they are op at with a plethora of ways they can be abused. I want indeviduals mastery over champions to mean more and cooperation with teammates as early as champion select to be super important. I want there to be more lane counters (like medium counters, not super hard but like renekton level) and most champions should have their scaling into late game reduced. While champions who do scale should have their early game damage reduced.

Kai GuyApr 6, 201810 votes

I want to take a second to thank you Riven, Saltran, and Nacho. Yall disagreed with fate (so do I for that matter.) but did not spam the downvotes for disagreement. That is Classy and rare on boards. Kudos.

Automated RivenApr 6, 20187 votes

Thanks. I only downvotes if someone is objectively wrong or they are being an ass.

saltranApr 6, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Automated Riven,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PyEQ55G5,comment-id=0000000100000000,timestamp=2018-04-06T20:46:25.424+0000)

Thanks. I only downvotes if someone is objectively wrong or they are being an ass.

I should do it but I admit that sometimes I do downvote ppl when I just don't agree.

Should improve it for further posts.

Risk of FateApr 6, 20183 votes

[deleted]

Kai GuyApr 6, 20184 votes

I encourage folks who don't share a majority opinion to speak up. I wont punish ya for speaking your piece long as it shows thought and is respectful and will actively encourage others to do the same.

Personally I think that champions should have a range of viability that differs for skill level. A complex champion should not do well in elos players struggle to make complex plays.
I like generalist champions being solid pick when there's low information. if your an early pick, if your teammates don't declare intent. I don't want counters to run the norm of Oh I'm just fucked nothing I can do now, they should make it difficult, put you behind, but not force you out of the game. Lower relevance is ok with me 0 relevance is not. I don't mind neich or pocket picks, I don't mind counter picks, I think its fine for a bad strategy to be a winning one, the condition is you need to play that Strat very well. (I consistently made gold/plat elo playing AP nami and BOTRK Bard for my mains. Fun yes, Viable after plat 2... not really, least not at the skill I play them at.)

So on the whole I think balance for the games health should not be measured globally or in closeness to 50% but rather it should get broken down into different blocks that relate to a champions skill floor and ceiling and the average player in that blocks skill level. In the end what I want to see is all champion be viable when you look at ever block as a whole, even if not all champions are viable per block. Some may only exists as viable hard counter in low MMR to a semi popular pick, and that is fine to me. Others might only see success in Pro play and its hyper focused teamplay (cough Ryze Cough cough) that's also ok.

I want it to be constantly in flux, I want what's strong to change up, and I never want it to get to a place where your skill is a non factor.

Automated RivenApr 6, 20184 votes

Please don't do that. Your opinion is just as vauleble as any of us others. Typically the best solutions are found between differing opinions instead of either extreme.

Risk of FateApr 6, 20184 votes

[deleted]

Automated RivenApr 6, 20183 votes

Also true. I just don't want anyone who has a differing opinions from the majority to feel silenced or snuffed out when it's completely reasonable to assume they have just as good of points.

TehNACHOApr 6, 20183 votes

Just as you say that, somebody downvoted me.

rip

Kai GuyApr 6, 20183 votes

fixed it.

THE RlVER KlNGApr 7, 20183 votes

[{quoted}](name=Automated Riven,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PyEQ55G5,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2018-04-06T20:23:04.505+0000)

I want indeviduals mastery over champions to mean more

This is hilarious to me because riots seemingly undying goal the last couple of years is to inject artificially high skill ceilings into everything and everyone in order to break every champ past a certain skill level. If youre better at a champ you should of course perform well, but you shouldn’t be allowed to lose counterplay or become unbeatable in certain matchups. Skill level should be about heightening strengths not mitigating weaknesses, whereas riot thinks it should be about both.

It’s bad design and it needs to stop.

Automated RivenApr 7, 20181 votes

If you read my post you would see I said essentially the same thing. Champions should be good at a specific thing and be weak in a bunch of ways. Champion mastery would be learning to play around your strengths and midigate your weaknesses to the best of your ability.

And medium counters is not in beatable. It simply means you have to play safe and outscale. That's why I used renekton as an example.

THE RlVER KlNGApr 7, 20183 votes

No. Champions should not be able to 'outplay' their weaknesses. This is why people hate CertainlyT champs because they do just that. Yasuo should have to land a tornado to get an edge- oh wait, no he doesn't, he can just dash onto you for instant PBAOE. Zoe is a burst mage, who is squishy and fragile - oh wait, her stun is just as potent up close and her cooldowns are ridiculously low. etc. etc.

Mastery should be about honing strengths. Champions should always have a weakness and designing a champion around being able to mitigate or remove said weaknesses is horrendous design.

Counters should exist, but they shouldnt force you to sit under turret and do nothing all lane phase. This is why top lane has felt so terrible for so long. Some champs can just beat you with a bag of gold or stats and there's nothing you can do about it (renek, panth, ornn, camille) and it feels like shit. 'Play safe and outscale' is not a extant option in this meta because they can just bully, shove, roam. Games snowball out of control and unless youre a hypertank sitting under turret while a lane bully laughs at you through the minion wave won't do shit for your team. This is true for any lane or role or position.

Automated RivenApr 7, 20183 votes

Just read my damn post. Your answering claims that I didn't make. And arguing about shit I didn't say. Every champion if they play to their strengths mitigates their weakness in some way. So yes. They should be able too. Not to the extent that they don't have weaknesses but to the extent that they (the player) plays in such a way their weakness isn't as exploitable. Obviously good opponents are going to be able to exploit it anyway cause you will fuck up.

XeroKimoApr 7, 201810 votes

From my point of view, this season with the help with the past 3 seasons, Riot has nearly achieved a balanced state, but not in a way the community wants. This whole powercreep thing which has been more vocal in the community since season 5 has been the reason for this. I might also be slightly biased in this opinion due to being a fill main, but I can pick any champion I want, and win in ranked, regardless of the meta as of this season. The whole reason being is that everyone's power curve feels too similarly, that I don't really account for how bad I am with a given champion.

This wasn't something that I could do in season 5-7, and definitely not before those seasons as I also lacked the skill. Playing a champion that wasn't in meta was pretty much shooting yourself in the head, but despite this powercreep balance, I'm enjoying the game in ways I couldn't before, but at the same time, hate it, due to never having the feeling someone is better than me, just because they got 1 kill in laning phase.

If they could manage to bring back the feeling of every champ having a unique power curve without killing this playabilty of all champs, I think League would reach another all time high.

saltranApr 6, 20189 votes

When in a Gameplay's Board there's actually a gameplay discussion and not salt fest with downvotes everywhere [sg-lux-2]

GeauxxApr 6, 20188 votes

I think what most people fail to realize is that a game like league, can't be balanced.

Outside of that, i just agree with your post tbh.

2Charmnot2CharmApr 6, 20187 votes

I just want 60%-70% of the champ roster to be viable in high elo even if they are never seen in pro play.

XeroKimoApr 7, 20182 votes

In my eyes, they are, last season I've played almost 2/3rds of the whole league roster, this season, I plan to go beyond that, that being said, they aren't all wins, and they aren't all good games, but I played them all at a pretty good level.

If high plat isn't high enough, than I'll aim higher.

WiegrafOfValorApr 7, 20184 votes

I really don't care and don't mind a champion's % winrate to be honest.

Balance for me, on a moba context, is to be able to be useful with any champion in any situation. Don't misread this, I'm not saying that champions can't have weaknesses or they can't be on a disadvantage.

What I mean is that even if I'm at a disadvantage situation, I can still be useful and have a win condition despite I'm been counter picked, or on a bad match-up. What I don't like is to pick a champion I have several hundreds of hours worth of experience with and lose terribly to another champion because riot decided that the other champion should get the "spotlight" and be meta.

I wish damage was nerfed across the board, so skill expression would become more of a deciding factor as it used to be, nowadays you can lose/win a teamfight in less than 2 seconds, that doesn't allow you to make much of a decision other than when you are going in, and who are you going to focus your damage on.

I play a lot of Tham Kench, and it's sad to see teams that were better than ours losing because they decided to focus all their power on a carry, and then I just W the carry and win the teamfight because of that. They didn't make any mistake, but they lost, because they gave their all in those 2 seconds, and after that my team wiped them out even though we were behind. Same can be said otherwise, if I missed that W or were too slow to react, they would have won because of a single mistake.

I really think Riot should review their balance philosophy, because making everything deals 1k damage isn't what made us start playing league to begin with.

That's my two cents.

TehNACHOApr 6, 20183 votes

What do you define as a balance game state and what do you want it to accomplish?

Every champion, every role, and every strategy has its place in the game. This does not mean they should all be equally strong, this does not mean they can handle any situation equally well, this means that if you identify the situation properly apply the correct champion/strategy/etc. that you should be able to take advantage of that specific situation, just as how your champion/strategy/etc. can falter if faced with a situation its specifically weak in.

To give an example, Burst Mages vs Tanky champions and Squishy Champions. If you're facing agaisnt a fully loaded Syndra with her R up and you're a full health Tank like Maokai, you should have no fear instantly dying in one rotation. Syndra's job as a Burst Mage allows her to basically destroy any squishy in her reach, with a caveat of being inefficient or even plainly bad at killing Tanks sans radically changing her playstyle. On the other hand, if you're a Lucian and you find it smart enough to walk right up to Syndra to try to trade damage, you deserve to die. You could for example stay out of Syndra's circle of influence and fight from afar, or change your build to suit the situation at the cost of your damage, but if you're a squishy champion walking right up to Syndra, that should be a free win for her. Yes you can argue that strategy and mechanics should play a part in the outcome but the bottom line should be if you play to your champion's strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, you should win. If the enemy plays to their strengths and your weaknesses, they should win. Bullcrap like artificially installing delays on Assassins so that ADCs don't insta die to them is just backwards. Items that counter your champion's weaknesses entirely without trading anything meaningful (like Maw of Malmortious that period when it was waaaaaay too strong) shouldn't exist. Every individual thing in the game must have a specific purpose; areas where they are strong and areas where they are weak.

Death by GlamourApr 7, 20183 votes

One of the major failures of the adc update is now that almost all of them are relavent throughout the game

Really wish we could bring back the old lane bullies mid game spikers and the true hyper carries

Tik115Apr 7, 20183 votes

To me a balanced game state is one where - Given the right comp of champions on your team - Any champion can do well or at the least more then the current 15% of the roster.

A Balanced game state to me is one where Melees aren't shut down and made useless just because the enemy laner decided to pick a ranged carry.

A Balanced game state to me is one where I can pick an immoble mage and contribute rather then be outdone by mobile champs who use the items meant to make me more mobile to amplify there's.

A Balanced game state for me is one where a ranged champion cannot benefit well from items designed for Melees forcing a risk reward.

A Balanced game state for me is one where Hard counters are down to champion picks and skills, with items being soft counters

A Balanced Game state for me is one where a champion's power is not locked to an item (Looking at you Assassins/Some Ranged champs+Duskblade and Old Vlad + Will of the Ancients when it existed and Zed + Old QSS)

A Balanced Game State to me is one where the focus of victory or defeat isn't so nailed down to the Marksman class, Where I could pick a late game midlaner, or a fighter top laner or a carry jungler and have just - or close to - as much of an opportunity to carry as the Marksman.

That's some of mine without getting into specifics such as individual champions

SeilleasApr 7, 20183 votes

The only BIG problem i see right now in the game is that you can very very rarely solo carry but games are very very often solo lost by one player. Also there are too many ways to come back, if you play bad early you should be punished for it not be like "meh, it doesnt matter, we have lategame", take baron, banner and win... Also i´d like having more active items in the game, well overall just more items. Otherwise the game is fine, except some very underperforming champions that have problems because new releases are overloaded.

iV0lt4GEApr 7, 20182 votes

You know, I talked to one of my friends which happeneds to be Challenger in EUNE and he said that winning in low gold using strategies that are implemented in Challenger is a no go. This is mostly because if someone feeds super hard, the game can't be stalled enough before it goes out of control and he eventually loses. It pissed him off because it showed that he was dependant on his team to just not screw up while he was trying to win the game.

In some way I can agree because if he is Challenger and plays like he does in Challenger, he should win the game because he is just that better at it. However, since that is not possible, the only way for him to actually win is to play like a "Booster" he said. That means, he has to stomp his lane so hard that whenever they try to fight him, they will always lose and he has to finish the game as fast as possible before the enemy team can make a comeback. This is the only way to actually Solo Carry nowadays.

Unless you have a higher skill cap than your elo, you can't play like this and in the end you are dependant on getting slow leads while hoping your team doesn't screw up.

Based on what he told me, I believe that we need to reduce ways to comeback from the game and/or more ways to get leads.

Slice n Dice emApr 7, 20183 votes

Dota 2 is a balanced game. That is what you look at if you want to find balance. No lane is autowin, melee can fkin play the game. It's not an auto loss if you pick a melee into a ranged in off-lane. Sure there are some OP heroes but there are SOME not a fkin whole class. For how many season we have to cry about fkin adc's/bot lane to get them fkin nerfed?

Recently I started playing dota 2 played about 95 games, now I appreciate that game so much. There esports are more interesting, gang bang fights, comebacks from buy backs. It's not hey we lost one baron fight I guess that means we lost. Even if you lose nashor in dota 2 its not much of a big deal. I just wish a game to be a combination of dota 2 and lol. Balance from dota 2 and summoner spells from lol and no TP's on every one, and shitty cheesy escape away TP's from trees.

Hexs FortuneApr 6, 20182 votes

The pursuit of balance keeps the game interesting, so long as things don't get too out of control.

Kai GuyApr 6, 20185 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w Might be relevant to you. Hope ya enjoy.

RainXBladeApr 7, 20182 votes

Ey, Extra Credits!

Glad you mentioned one of my favorite, go-to youtubers.

MirrorUApr 7, 20182 votes

I'll sum this up quickly, this game has nothing to do with balance and never will. Ideally this game would be balanced, but they picked the rito balance team out of a cracker jack box and now their idea of balance is to just endlessly buff the same broken champs and never fix what's wrong. I give you prime examples, MasterYi , Yasuo , Vayne , Nasus , Fizz , Zed , and the list just goes on and on.