Competitive variety or winrate balancing

manbearswine·8/23/2016, 3:48:40 PM·32 votes·1,290 views

Pick one.

I'm tired of the same people(and yes, it is in fact the same people), complaining about seeing the same champions in competitive play then crying for nerfs every time someone crosses the 52/53% winrate, these two are contradictory, you CANNOT have both.

No, the balance team cannot magically make all champions of equal strength at all levels of play and coordination, thats too big of a design constraint and is pretty much impossible, so pick one and stop whining about the other.

24 Comments

Erockandroll8/23/2016, 7:03:17 PM12 votes

The funny thing about this is, I'm pretty sure that making sure their is something for everyone is why we have 130 something Champions. All with varying levels of skill to pick up and master.

But ultimately, people are going to complain about that, since it means the viable champion pool is going to be based solely on skill. Especially a problem when people get hatched to a specific champion. It also becomes a problem when top and bottom tiers have very opposing views regarding certain champions. Example: Lets say champion X get's released, and he is considered OP due to his combination utility and damage. And Riot feels the need to Highlight one, and Nerf the other. If Lower Elo favored champion X due to it's damage output, and the Pro scene thought the Utility of the champion was core. Then Riot is going to be hard pressed to not alienate one of these player basis. But if they try to reconcile the difference, the result may be a champion who has Neither.

Though personally, even though some champs are pretty much going to be noob champs, and others, almost LCS exclusive. I feel like Riot could do more to smooth out that skill curve. Thus, champions who are both noob and pro, can still compete in mid range competitions.

Astôlfo8/23/2016, 9:47:06 PM3 votes

People complain about everything. Their complaints are irrelevant.

Marshbouy8/23/2016, 9:28:38 PM3 votes

Get this to the top of hot. Please. I want people to see this. ofc it probably won't because most of the people who want both of those at the same time also say stuff like "you are bronze so you don't understand"

zlumpy8/24/2016, 5:59:46 AM1 votes

The only champs that shouldn't have high average win rates are high skill champs. Thats by nature of the class not what I think btw. There should always be a group of less skilled people bringing down their average. If they have high average win rates that means they are probably too strong in so so hands and absurdly powerful in the hands of people that have taken the time to really learn them.

All in all I kinda just want everyone to be good. That line from the Incredibles is a great way to look at it. "When everyone is super nobody is" (probably got the quote wrong but you get the point.) So instead of constantly nerfing everyone lets a buff some of the worse win rate guys a bit. Yeah that means a few high skill champs will prob get buffs but if other champs also get buffs it should even out.

Btw this problem is also a pretty big issue because of all the things being removed from game slowly that served as a sort of check to them. Things like more targeted spells and old passive aura items buffing teams to be able to survive insane burst etc etc.

Blue Moon Wolf8/24/2016, 6:11:38 AM1 votes

Honestly I just want them to balance by winrates. When I say that, I don't mean get every champ at 50%, cause it's ridiculous to ask for a champ who has a high learning curve to be on par with a champ who is mechanically simple. I mean get to a point where simple champs would generally have high win rates then get progressively lower win rates as their difficulty increases. I couldn't care less about them trying to balance for "competitive variety". To Riot, that's just a creative way to say "buff the popular champs for LC$".

Gusdel8/23/2016, 6:38:11 PM1 votes

You can have both. The issue is riot wants over bloated kits hidden power behind mini games and "skill". Look at XinZhao he is easy to see his strengths and weakness. One look at his kit and you see he can be kited but if you adjust his power for "pro" play where he can get his total damage off in a smaller window he will be overpowered because Morgana , Lux , and Vayne will dont be picked on the other team they will go the boards and complain that he is overpowered. Look at Gangplank his power his hidden behind the barrels. You cant highlight a skill and see he can do 1k damage off his barrels. You have to plan and setup the damage and keep the enemy guessing. When you get it down they go dead when you miss they kill you with little you can do.

Now gangplank is much harder to play then xin zhao so he needs more damage potential to make up for skill difference. On the pro scene skill isnt the issue they all have great skill it what champions have the most CC, damage, and tank potential to abuse to get a win. Riot needs to find that happy medium between skill cap and damage then we can see xin zhao in the lcs.

(The champions used for an example. I know some will find gangplank a skilless champion and xin zhao needs skill to do well blah blah blah. I was looking at kits not what they can and can't do currently on live.)

DarkRitual8/24/2016, 10:29:26 AM1 votes

Last year, worlds was very diverse in champion picks. I hope this year will be similar, and not just diverse because of different regions pick priorities (EU likes Tahm Kench more than NA, for example).

iluvalar8/23/2016, 9:30:31 PM1 votes

{quoted} No, the balance team cannot magically make all champions of equal strength at all levels of play and coordination, thats too big of a design constraint and is pretty much impossible, so pick one and stop whining about the other.

Kinda easy, they could make the passive GP10 slowly fluctuate with the win/rate until it reach 50%.

KoKoboto8/24/2016, 2:47:57 AM1 votes

They're nerfing Rek'Sai and Gragas so they'll be seen less at Worlds but next best picks are Elise and Nidalee which will probably be coming up a ton lol