Boards›Gameplay

Random Idea: Stat-Gated Effects

Teridax68·9/26/2017, 10:53:28 AM·3 votes·466 views

Off-builds are a dying breed. Whereas at the beginning of League, champions were intentionally designed with the possibility of going for AD, AP or even tank builds, nowadays kits are designed with only one of those stat lines in mind. The main reason cited for this is that it is extremely difficult to balance a champion around building in two completely different ways, and being equally balanced at both, since changes designed to affect one build will also affect the other. In addition, because the differences between builds usually boils down to stat scalings on a champion's kit, off-builds frequently end up becoming hyper-focused or simply weaker versions of main builds. AP Miss Fortune, for example, has better damage on her E and a killer Q when coupled with Lich Bane, but otherwise does everything AD MF does, only weaker. Even outside of the AP/AD divide, issues frequently arise when AP-scaling supports want to also be viable in solo positions, and cannot adequately compete because their bases and scalings have been adjusted around bot lane support builds. Giving more power to one build, but none to the other, is effectively impossible in the current framework, precisely because mere ratios do not allow for it.

Enter stat-based milestones.

What do I mean by this? Well, the idea is to give champions certain bonuses that activate only when they build enough of a certain stat. To pick just a random example, Miss Fortune's Love Tap could splash for AoE damage if she has 200 or more AP: because this would require committing to a stat line, it would give power to one build (in this case AP MF), but not the other. The opposite could be done as well: for example, Fizz could be made to lose the untargetablity and damage on his E if he builds more than 50% of his base health in bonus health, and this method could allow assassins to have more forgiving bases without running the risk of succeeding too well with tanky builds. Taken far enough, this could allow champion kits to do really different things depending on how you build them, allowing for real variation in playstyles.

The main potential issue with this, imo, would be complexity, in that it might involve memorizing different effects depending on which items are being built, though at the end of it there are essentially only about three different main stats that can be committed to: AD, AP and health/resists. This would also require some additional design work to develop these effects and thereby explore new ways of playing the same champion, though ultimately League should also likely be doing that already, as there are usually no more than two ways, and often just one, to play a champion. If done correctly, these kit mutations according to stats could be the start to many more off-builds, particularly since those off-builds could be added over time via these stat-gated changes, without having to rework the base kit.

What do y'all think of this? I've checked the Boards history to see if this was posted already, and haven't seen anything like it come up, though I could very well be mistaken. For those who do play off-builds or look to innovate on champion kits, how do you think this idea would affect your custom builds and playstyles?

19 Comments

Yrzen9/26/2017, 11:22:12 AM2 votes

Yes, anything to increase the number of ways to play.

When a new champion comes out that can viably be played multiple ways, Riot effectively introduces two very similar champions whose playerbase may not actually overlap. I know this from experience, because I love top lane Lulu, because of her ability to make use of Nashor's tooth and generally have sustained damage that she wouldn't be able to afford or apply enough as a support. She's a great duelist, but the same cannot be said about her if she's on a Support budget. I love AP Miss Fortune, for being such a safe artillery mage, but I'm not too interested in how she plays as an AD champion. I love AP Varus, because I like the way he plays as a tank-shredding burst mage assassin, but don't have as much fun as when I have to play him as an arrow-spamming artillery character. It happens constantly, but when the numbers just aren't there, such as AP Miss Fortune, it feels bad, because you know that you can't just build the expected stat and play the same way.

It could open so many doors, and there's really no downside, since the requirements could scale with level, be adjusted to prevent abuse on hybrid builds or be nerfed with impunity without affecting the other types of builds.

ZT Xperimentor10/26/2017, 9:24:08 PM2 votes

Ornn is probably the most hybrid champion they've made in years; AD ratio for physical damage on his Q, Hp ratio for his shield part of W and enemy Hp for magic damage, Armor & magic resist ratios for physical damage on his E, and an AP ratio for magic damage on his R. I enjoy him for that because he has plenty of flexibility . . . but I can't deny the truth you've mentioned about the majority of flexible playstyles being railroaded.

I'm all for this idea, though I figure the requirements vs benefits would have to be steep to minimize excessive synergy. Mage rengar and bruiser fizz come to mind.

Lost R9/26/2017, 1:50:50 PM1 votes

You forget that early League was imbalanced as fuck. AP builds on fighters tended to be stupidly overpowered; Master Yi had a 2:1 AP ratio, and his heal used to heal for a flat amount rather than based on his HP difference. Sion functions better now as a tank because he doesn't need to build AP to increase the strength of that shield.

Certain champions are more customizable than others. Lulu is perfectly viable as a utility APC: she won't be as powerful as the real thing, but the utility and crowd control she brings provides a different kind of edge up during fights. Sometimes I build a Wit's End, depending on the support; for Thresh, a Statikk Shiv to crit with Flay's passive.

One of the big problems is that people want to play with the most inflexible champions (read: assassins and ADCs), and they can't be arsed to actually experiment with different items for different situations. Hell, people tend to try and rip their jaw off to scream at me even louder the instant they see Wit's End on Kench, Braum or Taric. Inflexible minds lead to inflexible builds and champions.

Darkdemon65310/26/2017, 10:40:21 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Whereas at the beginning of League, champions were intentionally designed with the possibility of going for AD, AP or even tank builds,

No they weren't. The purpose of seemingly out-of-place ratios of champions was so everyone could gain some benefit from auras (and in some cases items like TF). Now, auras have basically all been removed.

Quepha10/26/2017, 10:55:07 PM1 votes

Akali used to have this on her old passive. People set up specific rune pages just so they could hit the threshold out of the gate.

It's not really that interesting or exciting, the stat requirements probably won't actually steer any build deviations since it would feel like total garbage if the effect required a very suboptimal stat, and it would make falling behind in cs feel even worse than usual.

Quepha10/26/2017, 11:02:01 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Off-builds are a dying breed.

Unusually bad timing for your proposition as an off-build just drove the boards to the brink of insanity.

Even with these kinds of hard thresholds, balancing multiple builds on the same champion is a problem exponentially more difficult than balancing them with one build (which is itself more difficult than people realize) because they will inevitably still share a ton of other base stats, damages, and damage ratios and changing any of those affects both builds.