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Can Riot post a blog that outlines their core design philosophies?

Josh Sand··26 votes·10,636 views

As a long time LoL player, I have developed a lot of ideas about how I feel the game should be, and obviously, my feelings are not aligned with how the game actually is now.

A lot of this stems from the fact that Riot often issued posts and blogs about their design pillars: Mastery, Clarity, Counterplay, etc.

What I would like to know is what are the design pillars that Riot is working with nowadays. Does the vision of your design still include these aspects? Have they changed to something else?

As a member of the community, I'm kind of confused about what experiences Riot is looking to deliver to the players. I thought I had an idea of what those were, when there was a lot of communication on the subject, but now I'm not so sure.

I'm not looking for any balance justification for champions like Akali or Irelia or Azir, etc. What I'm looking for is what the design goals were for champions that seem to depart from Riots design pillars that were spoken about just a few years ago.

14 Comments

Syrile17 votes

I will help them.

  1. Keep Yasuo strong.
  2. Ensure that hyper-mobile, flashy champions have almost zero skill floor but a high skill-cap and can burst people from 100-0 instantly so as to keep esports very "exciting" for casual players.
  3. Keep Yasuo strong.
  4. When the game feels like it is getting stale (every 2-4 weeks for the "balance" team) make massive, unasked for changes that completely change some aspect of the game.
  5. When 4 has been achieved and the players inevitably complain that the game feels ruined (how dare them for complaining about our perfect wisdom! They are pathetic and clearly should give us more money for wasting their time), it is then that we "rework" a completely unrelated thing that causes even more problems.
  6. After 4 and 5 have caused so many problems that even professional players complain about it, we then rework the problem into something even more broken (Conqueror anyone?) and then nerf it into the ground while we not-so-subtly say "told you so" about how it should have been left alone.
  7. Keep Yasuo strong.
  8. Find a perfectly serviceable aspect of the game that no one is complaining about or even cares about nor would want changed in any way and completely change it into some ridiculously overpowered or game-breaking thing (such as the ranked system, bounties, turrets, objectives, champion concepts, etc).
  9. When the players complain about number 8, we rework Ryze to ensure that they have something new to complain about and forget that we ruined the game in other ways for a while.
  10. While they are complaining about Ryze, we subtly buff an obscure champion to ridiculous levels that now dominates the meta for a few months. While this is taking over the game, we use this as an excuse to buff Yasuo because he is clearly behind now.
  11. We then nerf that champion from 10 into the ground for 3-6 months.
  12. We then rework the same champion from 10 and 11 into a hyper-mobile, overloaded champion or load them up with so much DPS the rest of the game is unplayable because of them.
  13. We do not nerf that champion, instead we blame this on items and rework items for a random lane. Another 40-60 champions becomes unplayable.
  14. Keep Yasuo strong.
  15. We finally admit we may have made a mistake with the champion from 10-12 and nerf them 5 movement speed or 1.03 base AD.
  16. During each of this periods of total fiesta chaos we release skins for each of the champions that becomes OP (while stating we do not choose the meta and skins are not based on who is the strongest). We also release 1-3 Ezreal, Lux, and Yasuo skins each time as well.
  17. Keep Yasuo strong.
  18. While a champion is at their peak level of ban/pick rate and the highest win % they have ever seen, we buff them and call it a nerf.
  19. We finally gut the champion that has been the second biggest problem the entire time to the point that no one will ever be able to win with them again. We then rework Ryze and blame him for the problems over the last 6 months.
  20. Keep Yasuo strong.

I think this sums it up right?

FlameHalbrdOkido9 votes

^would help a lot

Barso556 votes

Well, one thing that comes to mind is that the founders of Riot have stated explicitly (they were friends in college) that they wanted to start a company that

  1. Didn't keep making new games and stop developing/supporting old ones - This they have stayed true to.
  2. Work closely with the community when it comes to changes and development - this they have NOT stayed true to.
nelogis5 votes

Can Riot post a blog that outlines their core design philosophies?

They don't have any, they just design stuff and hope that it somehow works out

If it doesn't they just gut the champ / remove the thing and hope it works the second way around

y0r1ck5 votes

Riot has mentioned a long term plan to lower damage in the game. What does that plan look like? And how soon can we expect meaningful changes to damage?

hotarse4 votes

Core design philosophy no. 1: Make the most money possible. This is one of the reasons FTP is cancer. The financial side forces the company to compromise the game's integrity in order to fatten the bottom line. So who the f* cares when they keep the happy wind man strong? It's the most popular champ in China and VIetnam, and that's where all the money is coming from nowadays.

Ayzev1 votes

{quoted}

It's the most popular champ in China and Vietnam

Actually Vietnam is one of the regions he's least popular in. Still immensely popular there, and everywhere else, but to point to that as a particularly big money source isn't accurate.

hotarse2 votes

{quoted}

Actually Vietnam is one of the regions he's least popular in. Still immensely popular there, and everywhere else, but to point to that as a particularly big money source isn't accurate.

Thanks for correcting me. BTW, who is in Vietnam? Is Lee Sin 100% P or B there?

Ayzev2 votes

Yeah, he's picked in legit half of all games there lol

Papdi13 votes

Their philosophy is balance game around £€$ a d champions for cash from skins.

He4rtkiller1 votes

As a member of the community, I'm kind of confused about what experiences Riot is looking to deliver to the players. I thought I had an idea of what those were, when there was a lot of communication on the subject, but now I'm not so sure.

My thoughts exactly! It would be fair from Riot to tell us what experiences they are looking to deliver to us, the players. Like the OP I used to think that I know that but for a while now I have no idea what to expect anymore.

Jennifer4201 votes

no they cant. literally cant.

Kaisha1 votes

RIOT has no clue what its doing. If you haven't figured that out by now I don't know what to tell you...

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