The Design Flaw That's Finally Coming to Light

I could write a novel on what is fundamentally wrong with league, but I'll try to keep this short and in mostly list format so you're more willing to get the big picture. Keep in mind, however, that I'm not a design team manager. If you think anything I point out is bullshit, feel free to think that.

Firstly, a question...

IF TWO PLAYERS OF ROUGHLY EQUAL SKILL ENGAGE EACHOTHER AND BOTH MAKE NO MISTAKES, WHAT HAPPENS?

Generally, there are two schools of thought to this:

1. Someone should die.

2. Both survive through the disengagement of one party.

Although the latter option seems like it would be preferable, as it circumvents "stat checking", it has the side effect of making games slower paced. Therefore, it is common for game designers to use the former option instead, as it keeps the tempo of the game high and exciting at the cost of making actual results more dependant on a system. Some game designers will take advantage of this in the form of statistical modifications that can be applied before an engagement occurs.

Although this can work favorably in some circumstances, League suffers greatly from it. Because League has a "horizontal advancement" system, keeping these advantages in check is horrendously taxing on the development team. A single change to one thing can make an entire section of the game utterly defunct.

I could be talking out of my ass, but I think that this is why some champions seem to be treated favorably. If you were a developer and you had to decide between having Cassiopea, a damage hose, and Zed, a "LOL, get clicked" assassin, perfectly balanced against eachother and just saying "Rock, paper, scissors man. Cassiopeia can't win against everyone." and saving hundreds of testing cycles, what would you choose?

Continuing from before, this situation puts League into several oxymoron situations. Let me say in advance that there is currently a big emphasis on the last point.

1. Although Riot's decision concerning the first question implies a preference to fast pacing, the existance of a laning phase does not. We may be seeing a response to this problem currently with the recent changes, however.

2. This also flies in the face of "champion diversity". When how diverse a pool of champions is depends on how many ways developers can think to apply damage, there will almost always be a limit. I interpret this as an underutilization utility in champion design, personally.

3. This flies directly in the face of plans for the mid season mage update and the creation of the "uptime" keyword.

Obviously, point 3 is the hot topic currently. AP mage players are disgruntled, and rightly so. A change that is claiming to bring diversity is not addressing the core issues. Instead, mages will have significantly reduced slot efficency on some items and have the amount of time they can be active on the map, a subject Riot seems to be very shakey on, also reduced.

In conclusion, changes are being made to the game, once again, to paint over a sore spot that has been in the core game since it's release. I suggest one of two things: rethink the mage update, or rethink the answer to my first question. I'm not going to engage any other problems than this specific one. If I could get some comments on these thoughts, that would be awesome.