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If I were God Emperor of Riot and could do whatever I wanted for season 10..

Karunamon·5/20/2019, 3:04:46 PM·49 votes·13,359 views

(tl;dr warning - this is probably going to be long and rambling)

Here's what I'd do. How does this game sound?

Balance and design philosophy (Focus: viability)

  • No more pushing a meta. Certain meta-enforcement design decisions, like locking jungle items behind Smite, would be reverted immediately. There are no other immediate changes to champions, runes, etc, but going forward, the focus for live design is "viability". I would not make any change that intentionally makes a certain champion or playstyle nonviable without giving the players a wide berth, and sufficient time to adapt and find a response. In other words, if a cheese comp can be effectively countered by another cheese comp, I leave it alone.

    • I would only directly act in this way if the playstyle is inherently toxic to the design of the game and objectively has no ingame counter (example: the spellthiefs bounty strat), and even then act as surgically as necessary to avoid affecting anything other than the direct abuse (i.e. I wouldn't disallow supports to proc spellthiefs by themselves, since I'm then hurting supports to fix a problem that's not even in their lane).

  • I would be open to player-developed changes that upend the 1 top, 1jg, 1 mid, 2 bot meta.

  • I would prefer buffing over nerfing wherever possible. Getting nerfed feels terrible, and it's worse if you're a onetrick.

  • If I have to nerf a champion, i'd look back a number of patch notes to ensure that I haven't also recently nerfed an item or rune in their core build path, thereby unintentionally amplifying the effect of the nerf.

  • I'd be open to average game length going above 30 minutes, based on a wide and universal poll of players. (I have the power to pop up surveys in the client, after all.)

Player behavior (Focus: honor)

  • Information Riot has access to is now used in an attempt to keep permabanned players from returning. In other words, I now ban people rather than accounts. Example: The client can access a great deal of information from the local system legitimately, and in a way that probably is GDPR-compliant. With this information given a large enough intersection, I can determine if two accounts are controlled by the same person. We'll call this "player metadata". This isn't just an IP ban either. Legitimate cases where multiple banned players might share a computer can be cleared with documentation (say, business documentation if you run a LAN cafe).

  • "Toxicity" is redefined to mean only extreme conduct. Think violence-promoting, sexual, etc. The system that auto bans certain terms like "kys" and racial slurs remains untouched. In any case, mere passive aggression or banter is no longer sufficient reason to get drummed out of the game. Players can still report unpleasant players, and that information is surfaced somewhere, but there will be no penalties for it.

  • If it's part of a champions kit or voice lines, repeating it in chat is not bannable.

  • The same applies to ingame information. Someone quoting "0/10" at you because you've died 10 times is not bannable.

  • Terms that can't be said ingame can't be used in account names (this may or may not have been fixed already).

  • A first offense for toxicity is always a no-punishment warning. The second offense is a 2 week ban. The third offense is an indefinite (not permanent) ban. The indefinite ban can be lifted after writing in to player support with evidence of contrition and acknowledgement and understanding of what you did wrong. If it happens again afterwards, then it's a permanent ban. Further, evasion of the 2 week ban by using a smurf is grounds for losing both accounts.

  • The postgame honor system goes away. Most of the time, ingame honor is given for performance, not "humility in victory or grace in defeat" as the summoner's code puts it. Its item drops are moved over to the level up capsules.

  • This is replaced with a thumbs up/thumbs down system that calculates a rating - and yes, you can rate opponents. Think an eBay-like feedback history.

  • Punishment history is now public information, with information falling off after a certain amount of time. This takes the place of the existing on-profile honor system, whose meaning now basically becomes "time since last punishment or flag". Honor now scales indefinitely, kind of like XP level, and is a function of games played vs time since last punishment. There are no rewards tied to this system other than a publicly-viewable honor level. Good behavior is its own reward.

  • An offense for intentional feeding is on a two strike system. The first time it's a two week ban, the second time it's permanent. Inting should be treated as cancer and handled just as seriously, as it destroys game integrity. Certain behaviors, like dumping your inventory, running it down mid, and so forth, are 100% diagnostic for intentional feeding and do not require developing a pattern of behavior over time. In general, intentional feeding detection will be more aggressive and faster.

  • Every report would generate a result that could be looked up. Not necessarily a popup message, but, say, a report history with a result as to whether that report was deemed valid or not, and the exact punishment that was handed out. No need to surface player names here, but answering the "Did that fucking guy who ran it down mid a couple days ago get what was coming to him?" question in the affirmative is extremely satisfying and provides closure, a sense of justice, and conveys a belief that we care deeply about sportsmanship.

  • Institute an "overwatch"-type system like the one that CSGO has. Imagine old Tribunal, but with a selection of recent cases. The goal is not to review every report, but the goal is to deliver results on a case within 3 days or less. This is to ensure that what's getting punished is actually in line with what the community thinks should be punished. This would also allow for anomalous behavior like scripting to be caught, since a number of current scripting packages are undetectable and have been for months now. Players that can participate in overwatch are chosen based on skill (MMR), behavior history, and length of time playing. There would be no reward for this - CSGO shows us that it's not necessary.

  • Bots are banned rapidly, not after they've had enough games to get from level 1 to 30. Alternatively, bot accounts are flagged and are only allowed to play with other bots.

  • Using the information we now have, smurf accounts are flagged and spend, ideally, zero games playing against newbies and all of their time playing against other smurfs.

  • Reports can be made from the client within 24 hours of the game ending, not just from the postgame screen.

Ranked (Focus: integrity)

  • Generally speaking, the philosophy for ranked becomes "This is where you go to get serious".

  • Ranked MMR would carry over, loosely, to other queues. If you have Diamond-tier skill in ranked, you do not suddenly start playing at Silver-tier skill just because you clicked "normal draft". It is not fair for those lower-skilled players for you to be anywhere near those games, and it's more tilting for them than it is fun for you.

  • You can now view your own MMR. Maybe not directly on the client, maybe not in an automated fashion, but in a way that you can click through and it shows you your current skill level immediately and accurately. If MMR is good enough for matchmaking, it's good enough to reveal.

  • Introduce a "prime matchmaking" queue. This is the opposite of DOTA-esque LPQ. You are granted Prime status by going a certain amount of time with no behavioral penalties and verification of some real life information like a phone number, and paying of a token fee. Prime queues are basically ranked, but with extremely high standards for professionalism, behavior, and competitive integrity. This queue would use normal solo/duo MMR and not be a separate ladder. In return for that fee and agreeing to the stricter rules, you get the following benefits in the new queue:

    • You'd always get your chosen role
    • By extension, you would never have autofilled teammates.
    • You could opt-in to getting a secondary role if it meant you'd get better queue times.
    • Your party would be able to join voice chat even if not a premade
    • If you AFK in a prime game, and your team loses, you eat the entire LP loss that the rest of your team would have lost instead.
    • Once a player has AFKed and not returned, all players are free to exit the (now unfair) game with no repercussions.
    • Abuse of this system, bullying a player into leaving, etc, is grounds for permanent dismissal from prime matchmaking with no refund.
    • Behavioral penalties are amplified in this queue. So much as one valid report for toxicity or intentional feeding is grounds for getting kicked out.

  • Solo queue becomes actual solo queue. The fact that paid (not against any rules either, AFAIK, since no accounts change hands) duo boosting services exist prove the existence of a rank inflation issue. SoloQ is for 1 player only, flex is for 2 or more in a premade.

  • I think promo games and demotion protection should both go away as a concept, but I'd run a poll on this before making the change. If we keep promo games, they are treated as Serious Fucking Business. Trolling in someone's promos, when they're vulnerable, is worth getting hit harder than trolling at all other times.

  • The punishment for boosting or sandbagging is loss of ranked privileges for the season, with a big fat "disqualified" banner in place of your ranked shield.

Client (Focus: efficiency)

  • At least one full season of "fix old, no new" in the client, raising it to the functional expectations of a polished AAA game in 2019. The client would be as light and streamlined as possible, with the understanding that the client's job is, in order of priority, getting people into a game, selling them stuff, and communicating. If that means sacrificing some bells and whistles or flashy chrome, so be it.

  • If someone is muted ingame, that mute carries over to postgame.

  • To help keep queue times under control, I wouldn't tear down an entire lobby if someone dodges. Players could opt-in to "join a lobby in progress". In other words, say 3 people have picked, and the 4th guy exits for whatever reason. All timers pause, and then a player with this option checked could then slot directly into the vacant spot, providing that their MMR etc. allows them to be matched with those players. Champ select then continues as usual, with the slotted-in player getting a full timer for their pick/ban as if they were there the entire time.

  • A report button for champ select misbehavior will be added. It is unreasonable to expect someone to play through a possibly blown game just to ensure that someone can be flagged for their behavior in pregame.

  • A dodge button will be added. There's no reason to make someone log in again because they want to dodge a lobby.

ARAM (Focus: all random)

  • All random means both "all" and "random" are treated equally. Any champion may appear in ARAM regardless of what you have unlocked.

    • We still have to make money (this is still a business at the end of the day), and a lot of people out there play ARAM only. To compensate:

      • You do not gain mastery, XP progress, or item drops when playing on a locked champion. You get to play the champion, that's it.

      • You may not use skins when playing on a locked champion, with the exception of the battle boost giving everyone a random skin as usual. Price goes up to 100RP.

  • Weighting goes away; (I.e. Aatrox is just as likely to appear as Zyra: 1 in 144)

  • The matchmaker will attempt to create balanced team compositions (i.e. not placing a team full of poke against a team full of bruisers, etc).

  • With teams now balanced, the ARAM-only per-champion percentage changes go away, turning ARAM into the teamfight simulator it's supposed to be. This includes reverting the nerfing of healing abilities - they get to be just as effective as they are on Summoner's Rift. If this causes game duration to creep unacceptably high, other levers will be used. Ideas:

    • Minions receive an automatic baron buff after a certain amount of time has passed
    • Inhibitors automatically pop after a certain amount of time has passed
    • All minions are super minions after a certain amount of time has passed

Other stuff (Focus: the kitchen sink) - in no particular order

  • I'd either fix or decommission the built-in match history website. Its current state is embarrassing. If we decom it, make a deal with OPGG to make the "view on the web" button in postgame link there.

  • Ditto twisted treeline

  • Players could opt-in to having their entire match histories public, rather than just ranked.

  • Low priority, but I'd work on improving the bot AI, or I'd at least let players pick doom bots in custom games. Even better would be allowing people to script their own bots (kinda like how DOTA does it).

  • Speaking of which, players could create bot accounts (and flag them as bot accounts, meaning they only ever play other bot accounts) and use any sort of automation they see fit to drive them. Provide official Lua hooks into the ingame client for these accounts to use (obvious disabled on human accounts). Create a tournament for bots (kinda like the one that exists for Starcraft). Create a separate queue where humans can play against these external bots to test their might once it takes off.

  • Game surrenders now take a simple majority (from a supermajority). Early surrenders now take a supermajority (rather than unanimity).

  • ALL RP costs and purchases become factors of 100.

85 Comments

G Master Hung5/20/2019, 3:27:03 PM26 votes

Petition to make this man GOD EMPEROR

Posui Gart5/20/2019, 3:48:02 PM7 votes

Information Riot has access to is now used in an attempt to keep permabanned players from returning. In other words, I now ban people rather than accounts.

Losing time and money spent on an account is harsh enough.

mere passive aggression or banter is no longer sufficient reason to get drummed out of the game. Players can still report unpleasant players, and that information is surfaced somewhere, but there will be no penalties for it.

Flame should be punished. Not as hard as feeding, but still punished.

If you have Diamond-tier skill in ranked, you do not suddenly start playing at Silver-tier skill just because you clicked "normal draft".

If I have silver mmr in normal, there probably is a reason for this. Trying new champions, new roles, new builds, just not playing serious, whatever.

you get the following benefits in the new queue: You'd always get your chosen role

There is a reason for autofill: to decrease waiting time without decreasing mmr accuracy. If we match only prime players with each other while removing autofill, waiting times will grow to unbearable time. If we match everyone together, then its pay2win

Game surrenders now take a simple majority (from a supermajority). Early surrenders now take a supermajority (rather than unanimity).

Only if we add a punishment for starting surrender vote or voting "yes" in a game that ended as victory. Something like chat restriction, but with surrender voting.

Bob the Toastr5/20/2019, 6:00:56 PM6 votes

I disagree with buffing over nerfing. Damage creep is how the game got to where it is now.

Cevrad5/21/2019, 1:42:18 PM4 votes

The majority of the things you have said are actually alright, except your balance changes. Your 2nd point contradicts your first point lmao. The reason the jungle items were locked behind smite is because they are the most gold efficient items in the game and it was very common to see it bought in every single role, because of how cheap and effective the items were. It was inherently broken to allow that so they locked it behind smite.

Your buffing would just lead to where we are right now with insane powercreep, you should always nerf what is strong and buff what is weak.

I think you just do not have any cognitive understanding of the game, therefore you do not have my vote at all. Not saying what they are doing now is right, but they are doing better than what you want to do. What you want to do is make League an arcade game without balance at all. I can tell you this, nobody wants this.

mack91125/20/2019, 5:32:07 PM4 votes

No matter what you do a meta will always exist as people will always strive to play the most effective

FSRER5/21/2019, 12:16:52 PM3 votes

Ranked: Bring back the "unskilled player" report.

The23rdGamer5/20/2019, 5:24:31 PM3 votes

No more pushing a meta. Certain meta-enforcement design decisions, like locking jungle items behind Smite, would be reverted immediately. There are no other immediate changes to champions, runes, etc, but going forward, the focus for live design is "viability". I would not make any change that intentionally makes a certain champion or playstyle nonviable without giving the players a wide berth, and sufficient time to adapt and find a response. In other words, if a cheese comp can be effectively countered by another cheese comp, I leave it alone. . . . I would be open to player-developed changes that upend the 1 top, 1jg, 1 mid, 2 bot meta.

I think having some degree of what you can expect in a match is enjoyable for a lot of players, although variety also pleases another portion of the community more. Some people get upset when Aatrox is viable in Mid, Top, and Jungle all at the same time and you can't tell where he's going, or when AP mages become meta carries in botlane rather than the traditional marksmen ... but then again some people love that kind of variety and danger of the unknown, and neither stance is inherently right or wrong.

It's interesting to see what all you would do, even if I only agree with certain parts of what you say! I'd dissect your post quite a bit more but I gotta study for finals, but it was an interesting read at least. ^^;

IP Masquerena5/20/2019, 6:02:57 PM3 votes

Ok mister smart pants.

How would you nerf the interactive Spellthief's no cs top lane without hurting supports?

The fix Riot did is the best, and they even buffed the gold generation.

Also, unlocking the jungle items away from Smite? Well damn, looking forward to on hit adc being broken because of Blood Razor.

You just toss out ideas with no actual example of how you want to fix it, just say you will.

And viability, viable for who, low elo Yolo que or high elo aka the good players?

Nyarlathοtep5/20/2019, 4:02:27 PM3 votes

Correct me if im wrong but, wont a meta be created nevertheless? I mean meta means literally most effective tactic available. There is bound for a meta to be created. Its part of competitive games.

Eleshakai5/21/2019, 2:40:36 PM2 votes

Bluntly: I would quit your game and never come back.

Your balance structure would create basically Dota2 style gameplay, where things are balanced around pick counters rather than play counters.

Your behavioural structure would leave no punishment for general vocal toxicity so games would become cesspools. And it would expose the status of peoples' private accounts with your service to everyone else - which MAY be against the law in some places(although I can't say 100% on this). Furthermore, it would result in COUNTLESS false positives for intentional feeding, as most players have at least two games in their history that LOOK like they were doing this.

Your ARAM would mean I would have no option to avoid the champs I hate(I don't have an ARAM account, but I have VERY INTENTIONALLY avoided buying a handful of champs because there is literally no way I ever want to play them).

Your 'paid fee' ranked would create ABSURDLY long queues and a situation where anyone not willing or able to pay would be stuck in what is essentially a permanent low priority queue due only to them not being willing to pay to get out of it.

Forcing duo queue into flex would mean that a lot of people would never play with their friends again.

Yep. This is a game I'd never play.

Nevrankroaton5/21/2019, 8:12:17 AM2 votes

Right at the start, I want to make sure to have someone stab you in the back dear emperor because:

No more pushing a meta. Certain meta-enforcement design decisions, like locking jungle items behind Smite, would be reverted immediately.

It is here for a reason. Like all of the changes Riot made was for a reason and jungle items not being lock by smite brought a lot of issue, the same way exp not being gated for non jungler or afk farming jungle camp and minion brought a lot of issue.

I would prefer buffing over nerfing wherever possible. Getting nerfed feels terrible, and it's worse if you're a onetrick.

One tricker are not people playing lol, lol is a game about playing more than one champion, being more than being unidimensional. It is also about teamcomp, counters, etc. We all saw what happen when too much is buffed, as a fighting game player also, you thinking buff are better than nerf mean you have no idea how to properly handle the game design you have.

I'd be open to average game length going above 30 minutes, based on a wide and universal poll of players. (I have the power to pop up surveys in the client, after all.)

So it mean early will be irrelevant again, we will be back in S2/S3 with games taking forever to finish. 30 min game doesnt mean a good game, what people want is not having some mistake be too snowball heavy. But you SHOULD be able to snowball, if not your early decisions making/being ahead don't matter and it remove agency.

The same applies to ingame information. Someone quoting "0/10" at you because you've died 10 times is not bannable.

You don't get ban just for saying this. It is just often quoted as one of the thing you do when you are being overly negative/toxic. You just put something without context, ofc you can say that "X sentence" is not bad, but it is often the crystalisation of you continuing to be an asshole/shittalking instead of shutting the fuck up and playing the game.

I can totally see what kind of person you are when you say a little further:

Inting should be treated as cancer and handled just as seriously, as it destroys game integrity.

Of course... The famous "Me being mad isn't bad but this person isn't having a bad game, SHE FEED INTENTIONALY. CANCER PERSON. ME RIGHT, PLEASE BAN THAT". Typical.

Introduce a "prime matchmaking" queue. This is the opposite of DOTA-esque LPQ. You are granted Prime status by going a certain amount of time with no behavioral penalties and verification of some real life information like a phone number, and paying of a token fee. Prime queues are basically ranked, but with extremely high standards for professionalism, behavior, and competitive integrity. This queue would use normal solo/duo MMR and not be a separate ladder.

You DONT fucking get a cookie for being a decent person. Especially because you invented this BS queu just so you can get rid of a problem that riot try to deal with, aka disparity in role and people trolling if you don't give them assigned lanes.

You do not gain mastery, XP progress, or item drops when playing on a locked champion. You get to play the champion, that's it.

What? why? You still played the game, you still invested your time. When you play a free rotation champ, you don't own it and yet you gain exp. Wtf is this BS?

The matchmaker will attempt to create balanced team compositions (i.e. not placing a team full of poke against a team full of bruisers, etc).

You fucking ask for it to be true ARAM, aka true random. BUT it shouldnt be true random? What is even the fucking point then? You do know that randomness mean no fairness, it is random, it doesn't have a thinking or logic. When you toss a coin, jesus isn't here to give you a pat and make sure Face come out once after 5 try.

There is stuff I don't disagree or agree with (The clients, I would take you if you just made sure the clients was functionnal for all, I don't even truly suffer from it but it is honestly very bad) but like, jesus christ. It is why I hope it is never random people or reddit/board/twitter/pro players who balance a game but people who are deep in the core design/philosophy/date of the game.

Of course it is all opinion (I am vehement because I hate the board echochamber BS), we happen to disagree on a lot of things but like... Urgh the trigger (especially the jungle item things, like... urgh, you give forget the past way too easily) show me that you don't truly think about the game or the lessons to take from it, but more about how you feel/what you think yourself.

U R Good At Game5/20/2019, 6:17:06 PM2 votes

I'm okay with an enforced meta. The first thing I thought of when you said take away smite dependency for jg item is the amount of people trolling with no smite junglers. That is my general attitude to #NoMeta suggestions. The playerbase doesn't have the self-control not to do troll tactices unless you make it near impossible to play through either hard restrictions like smite or sterak's or through nerfing them out of a role. I already see enough people go out of meta int 0-10. I don't need that number to increase.

Plus the sheer amount of balancing and reblancing that needs to take place with an open meta. Instead of worrying about 150 champions that can go 1-2 roles each, now you need to do 150 champions x 5 roles. People think OP pickban exist now? Oh boy.

Outsmart Enemy5/22/2019, 7:14:19 AM1 votes

Great job on this post! I appreciate the detail and format you presented with.

I would like to see about 50-100 more item choices available. Build paths are much too limited and it feels stagnant trying to experiment.

CPU Lyrica5/20/2019, 7:21:34 PM1 votes

If you AFK in a prime game, and your team loses, you eat the entire LP loss that the rest of your team would have lost instead.

SOoo, are we not fixing the dont-bother-recoonnecting Problem? Rn, if you disconect, dont bother coming back. you still lose ranked points regardless of win or loss. and even a 5 min power cut dc can be decimating enough to cause a loss.

If we, say, made it so that if you recconected, and still lost.. well idk, maybe make it less severe?

PaladinNO5/20/2019, 7:44:00 PM1 votes

If I were God Emperor of Riot and could do whatever I wanted for season 10..

What about stuff like this? https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/uk0MeJ18-update-on-yesterdays-capsule-pricing-error

And what did you mean "ALL RP costs and purchases become factors of 100."? Sorry, math isn't my strong suit, especially not when being deprived of sleep...

An RP cost revert would be nice though. https://eune.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/store/store-update/rp-update-cost-and-refunds

Power Cosmic5/21/2019, 4:10:16 PM1 votes

They needs the metas to be about champs not about classes or damage types. Then the meta can form around those champs in terms of countering or complimenting them. Then of course as they are countered new things arise, so on and so forth.

MAGE ITEM KEKW5/21/2019, 5:50:01 PM1 votes

Everything looks fine but ARAM. You said to make each champion showup as much as others, but how do you do that and balance teams (not poke into full bruisers)?