Let's Talk: Balance

Hey y'all, missed me? Of course you did, how can anyone live without lil ol' me?

I'm in a bored mood, so I was thinking "hey, I know a fun way to entertain myself, let's see how many people I can offend by telling them to get good".

yaawn

I can foresee this thread will be a farm, either upvotes or downvotes, which neither a subject of matter for me.

So, we're going to talk 3 things today: M:tG's color pie, fighting game's skill and salt.

And yes, yes, I know that on face value neither of those things bar salt have anything to do with Ego of Legen...I mean League of Legends, but with me, I know what I'm talking about, hopefully.

Let's start with the Zed mains. There's a word that is spammed constantly, in 99% of cases by casuals or similar, a word called "fairness".

Let's start by analyzing the Scrub Lord's Prayer:

"My buttons weren't working And if they were, you were playing dishonorably And if you weren't, you're playing without skill And if you were, it's not fun to play that way And if it is, you only care about winning"

We know that most of the time it's the salt talking, that's why people say "get good", things seem unfair until you get good enough to know how to beat it. But, there are times when "get good" is simply elitist, things can be "fair" and "unfair" at the same time, and that's where the problem with why "fair" is relative.

Fairness can interpreted in 3 distinctive ways, sometimes those 3 being opposing ways: "sameness", "deservedness" and "need". (yes, yes, I know I'm plagiarizing Core-A gaming a little here, but they make good points and I'm in the mood to write today, so whatever)

• Sameness is basically what it sounds, we all have access to that thing. We all have access to the same strategies, options and such, but sameness is bad when it is forced on everyone.

An example would be having both early game and late game strategies available, it's good because we all have access to that strategy and we can use it, we just choose not to when we use another strategy, BUT, it's not a good thing we are all forced to play the same strategy. If it's a tank meta, we're all forced to play for the late game because too many tanks are in the game that you can't deal with most of the time until a while later, it is technically fair because we all can do it, but it doesn't feel fair because it's the only viable strategy available.

• Deservedness is basically what it sounds, if we work out but cheeks off so much, lab the game to no end to find or master a strategy, we deserve to have that strategy available to win.

It isn't fair to remove aspects that needed large amounts of time in practice mode or hundreds of games to get good at then have it removed because when someone can't do it but also doesn't know how to play against it cries that it feels unfair. Look at Machine Gun Cait, it was a very strong move for those who were able to use it, and for the rest, it didn't felt fair to play against despite it being fair. Why was it fair? It is validated by sameness, as we all have the potential to learn that combo, we just don't want to or care to, and it's something that was really hard to do so the person who spent who knows how many hours to learn it deserves to be able to use that to their advantage. (about MG Cait, if it truly needed touching, nerfing aspects about it to make it weaker would've kept it fair, as it still allows us to have the potential to learn it if we so choose to, while the people choosing to learn it have something extra, while not being something extremely oppressive to deal with)

• Need is basically what it sounds, social justice, the idea that those who are worse off are give comeback mechanics, balance patches, etc, at the expense of the better players.

Now, defining need is hard, the hardest part in this, I guess the best way to explain it is using another word that is relative, "counter play". There needs to be something to allow people to play against the other strategies. Need sounds fair when stuff gets changed to allow people to deal with something they weren't able to deal with before, but then comes another problem, what was preventing you from dealing with said thing before? We're using Akali here as our example, she isn't balanced right, but why? 1 word: "skill". Need doesn't relate to only nerfing stuff people can't deal with, but also buffing stuff people can't play. And here is where Akali stands currently, she's strong when mastered, and she was and can be opresive when mastered BUT most people can't play her. Her current kit doesn't allow the space for "need", hence why she feels unfair to most. Sameness is there, everyone who wants can start playing and learning to master her, she rewards the players who spend the time to master her, but, she's awful to play until learned, hence her win rates, and she doesn't allow too much counterplay when played perfectly, hence the salt. And there's no way to validate "need" for Akali, as that thing is exactly why she's so hard to balance, Riot tries to validate the "need" to play her for everyone, allowing things she shouldn't have in the amount she has compared to everything else she has, so the bad players get rewarded sooner, but because she's rewarding sooner, she's more toxic to play against someone who mastered her.

To be fair, you don't need to hit all 3 spots without ruining the game or aspects of it, depending on what was that was an issue. In fighting games, throwing were something that were fair in 2 of the 3 aspects, and throw tecking was added, where now you got no-one else to blame other than yourself for not tecking it. Akali can be balanced to be objectively fair but no matter what you do to her kit outside of a new rework, she won't feel fair for someone.

But that's ok.

Now, this will hurt feelings, and I don't care, but hey, just warning you, if you're weak of heart, skip this paragraph. Sometimes if something feels unfair but everything shows it is fair, it can encourage players to get better. Yes, for me Akali doesn't feel fair, yet as people know me, I vouch for her everytime I can, so why do I say she's not feeling fair? Because she's being dumbed down. Remember the 3 aspects we talked about? She loses "deservedness" in order to add to "need", she may get to feel fair to play against, but she won't feel fair to play as because she no longer gives any deserving rewards for putting the time to learn her.

And this is a problem with PvP games, there will always be something that invalidates the 3 aspects of "fairness", hence why "fair" is relative. If it feels fair for me doesn't mean it's fair for you, and vice versa. Zed players see it fair that they are allowed to play like a mage in the laning stage from a distance and being in equal farm for most of the time due to their 30 free AD passive for last hitting from level 1 (20 for casters), but they will cry their eyes out when the opponent buys a Seeker's/Zhonya as they don't feel it fair for them not to be able to kill the opponent whenever they want, yet on the other side of the lane, people don't see it fair that Zed is so safe by being allowed to play and engage from the ranges he is able to, but they believe it is fair to be allowed to buy Seeker's/Zhonya to have some counterplay to Zed. Again, another aspect that violates one of the 3 aspects and makes "fair" relative, what's fair for the mage is chaos for the Zed main.

And here is where we enter the next aspect, Magic: the Gathering's color pie, which isn't a cake, mind you, despite sounding like one.

If strategy A is strong against strategy B but is weak to strategy C which itself is weak to strategy B, you have balance. A will feel unfair to B, B feels unfair to C and C feels unfair for A.

The idea of balance is a double edge sword, because if you nerf C to make A feel better, you allow A to run rampart because A beats B but now C no longer beats A. When you change things and nerf based on "feeling", you create a new problem, allowing the things countered by what you nerfed to run rampant, but if you nerf that thing as well, then the other thing is going bonkers. Back to the A, B and C. You nerfed C and now A is rampart, but decide to also nerf A because it's too good, you allow B to run amok because B was already strong against C, which is now even weaker, and despite A and C being back in balance, where C counters A, A doesn't have the power to counter B and B is now the god tier, and if you decide to also nerf B, you're back at square one where A > B > C > A.

So how do you create balance then? That's the problem. Balancing games is difficult, every adjustment creates a ripple effect that changes the whole game. The more strategies available, the more cogs in your machine, and the average joe doesn't know what he's talking about because Jhonny from Plastic 12 talks based on feeling, which is subjective.

No matter how many strategies you have, something will always be better than others, and the best way to balance is to make it so there are counter strategies. If A is a good strategy, regardless if A feels unfair, you first need to check what counters A, maybe you can buff strategy G which counters A but is currently a bit too weak, while J counters G and J is in a good spot.

Despite people saying "nerf X, delete Y, buff K", and them thinking they know how to do it, they only consider X, Y or K, but do not look at what those changes influence for everything in between, what if nerfing X because it feels unfair makes F, G and H too strong because X was the only thing keeping them in check? You now created 3 more issues when there might have been none (remember, "fair" is relative). What this means, when someone suggests "nerf MF"....wait, no, no-one suggesting to nerf MF, she feels fair, but statistically she isn't, let's see.....nerf Senna, there, that's cried, look at what she keeps in check, Senna keeps MF in a lower state because she counters MF, so if you nerf Senna, MF will become even stronger since all the other counters MF has are too weak at the moment, why not buff champs that counter Senna and MF? Both are weak to hard engages, so why not buff engage type junglers for example?

And finally, the skill of fighting games.

The hell has that to do with League of Egos?...I mean Legends. Fighting games are 1v1, if you lose, you don't have RNG to blame for a bad draw like in card games or team mates like in LoL, all you can blame is yourself, you either pick up your pace and get better or quit.

But LoL is a 5v5, not a 1v1, so team mates can ruin the game for you OR your opponent, so why should you bother with your own skill when your team mates are to blame? Easy enough, you are their team mate. I took a random person from the boards, more specifically, the guy who made a thread not too long ago about how no-one bothers to improve match-making because he gets too many noobs in his team. He had 2 wins where he had mediocre KP, as in, 3rd lowest, so he did something but wasn't too useful either, then 3 games where he goes 2-11-2, 2-13-4 and 4-7-4 being the entire reason why his team lost. Very rarely in his past 20+ games is he the main reason why he wins, he's average, doing something, but not the main reason for the win, while when he loses, he is the main reason of the loss, yet he cries he gets bad team mates.

Not too long ago, in one of my promo games I had an Ekko jungle crying "this team will lose me the game" in all chat, we won, and well, he had the 2nd lowest damage dealt in the game, not even breaking 9k damage.

Yes, team mates can ruin your games, but YOU are also a team mate for other players, so if YOU aren't capable of performing by playing to win, you yourself are the reason why another player cries on the boards that he gets bad team mates.

In fighting games, the only person you can blame is yourself while in LoL you have scapegoats, and sure, there can be times when the team loses your the game, we all had it and we all will have it, but in the long run, there is no forced 50% that keeps you down, because the opponents have the same risk of bad team mates. If you want to have good team mates, the best start is to be the team mate you want to have. You want team mates that don't flame, stop arguments when they form and encourage the rest? You won't get them if the first time your jungler gets invaded by their mid and jungler, dies, you start flaming "trash jungler, must feel good for the you guys to have a good player" in all chat.

Although the games different, one being 1v1 the other 5v5, the only way to get better and have better team mates is for you yourself to get better first. Be the change you want to see.

So what did we learn today? Get good and stop blaming your team as you're no saint yourself, stop crying for nerfs to X without looking how it influences the game as a whole and stop being so offended if something doesn't feel fair, get good and leave it be, as no matter how the game will change, the only things that feel fair are the things you consistently win as, with or against, because when you consistently lose as, with or against something, no matter how fair it is statistically, it won't feel fair.