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Riot's balancing is like trying to patch up a sinking boat with a thousand holes

Youngcuck·7/22/2019, 6:22:31 AM·55 votes·14,308 views

I thought about what I'm about to say a long time ago but the last 2 or 3 months basically confirmed what I was expecting. I'm here to share with you what I think about what League of Legends has become.

I'll start by saying that I discovered the game in late season 3 but only started playing in mid season 4 up until today. Back in the day the game had a massive amount of information for a new player to grasp but it was really easy and extremely fun to get into the game and try out every champion there was. The game was really entertaining and the champions were easy to understand. Generally speaking, all of them had 4 abilities and a passive all really clear and cohesive with one or two phrases that explained what the ability did. Champions were simple in essence to the point in which you could be a new player, read the ability kit of your champ once and understand what it's supposed to do and what every ability does. Champs now are extremely complicated, extremely overloaded and unnecessarily innovative. Ok, so having said this lets get to the meat and potatoes of the topic.

Back in the day, there used to be broken champions, stupid mechanics, busted strats and many things that broke the game, just like today. But I've lived through all of those and I swear none of the problems the game had before bother me more than the unbalance issues the game has now. Many years ago, dating back to the days of the old Summoner's Rift, the balance problems were due to bugs, inexperience of the balance staff and undefined general direction of the game. It was basically a mess because League of Legends was still a maturing game. League of Legends, however, has reached its pinnacle a couple seasons ago and when everything started to fall appart is when Riot tried to push beyond that summit. You just have to look at the type of champions they have released since about season 6-7 onwards.

We have champions like Kled with insane walls of text to explain his abilities, champions with insane mobility that defy the every geography of the Rift such as Kayn, Rek'sai, a half blind champion that instead offers advantage in fog of war, Aurelion Sol who is one of the most game knowledge demanding champions to play and with mechanics extremely weird and hard to get used to, Ivern who was the first support type champ in the jungle and can also duplicate the value of jungle buffs, Pyke, a support assassin that doubles the gold income of a kill, something unheard of and unprecedented, champions that can steal, or mimic whatever part of another champions kit like Zoe, Sylas or Neeko. To make this clear, I'm not criticizing all of these champions, some are fine additions to the game while others have extremely unhealthy mechanics but they are here just to state how insane the champion designs have become. How does Riot expect to balance a game with so many factors involved and that many unique mechanics to every champion? Always trying to innovate and bring something new to the table sometimes ends up backfiring and in Riot's case it did really hard. The best example of this is champion reworks.

You just need to look at the reworks Riot has released from about 2 years ago up until now. When they reworked the assassins, assassin items became extremely broken and later had to be reworked again or nerfed. Out of the 4 assassins that got major changes (Rengar, Talon, LeBlanc, Katarina), 2 of them got reverted back to what they used to be (LeBlanc and Rengar) because their reworked kits were too strong and unhealthy. When they reworked adcs they turned Quinn from a forgotten champion into the most played champion in almost every lane, it was viable in top, jungle, mid and adc and in all of the lanes she was played in she had a high winrate, Graves was extremely busted when he got reworked and took several seasons to get him in a healthy spot, Kog'Maw received an unprecedented mechanic (oh shit, here we go again) that allowed him to bypass the attack speed cap to the point of doubling it, turning him into an immobile assault turret, resulting in him being so strong that he was also taken to the jungle and ended up being reverted to what he used to be before because he was too strong. After that, they reworked tanks to make them more skill expressive and allow tank players to have more of an impact in deciding who is the victor of a game. What did they do after some time? They reverted the really unique ult Zac got in his update to the older one just because the old one dealt more damage and increased his AP scalings to take away from his tankiness and empower his damage because damage meta, and the same happened to Galio, his defensive ulti is not defensive anymore and his W now deals damage for no reason. Ryze got reworked way too many times because they never nailed it properly.

And what do we have now? Mini-reworks that make absolutely no sense. This trend started a month or two ago. Riot doesnt even know what they are doing with their champs anymore. Sylas was released very recently and he already got his mini-rework because he is too hard to balance. Swains rework came out not that long ago and they have already changed the core mechanic of his kit for no reason. Aatrox rework is pretty recent too and he already has gotten a massive amount of changes, ranging from removing one of his dashes, removing a unique debuff he had on his passive, changing the revival ult to revival only after killing something and later on not reviving at all. Did Riot forget about the identity of champions? Wasnt Aatrox like some sort of undying deity? He has always had the reviving mechanic in his kit both on old Aatrox and new one and now you remove it just because Aatrox is too hard to balance? Ryze got another mini rework because apparently Ryze is unbalanceable. Illaoi also got some significant changes in some of her abilities. Akali and Irelia reworks came out so strong that almost every patch after their release had a couple nerfs directed towards them, the problem is that these two champions being strong wasnt due to raw stats and scaling, it was rather due to overloaded kit or extremely unhealthy mechanics, like true stealth.

As you can see, Riot has driven themselves into a corner and there is no way back now. The game nowadays is so complex and overloaded with complicated and unnecessary mechanics that it's nigh impossible to balance. Honestly, I used to have much more fun when I started playing the game and the old champions never felt boring regardless of how many times I played them. In fact, these new champs only manage to stress me rather than making me enjoy playing or fighting them.

Share your thoughts below and let me know whether you agree with me or not.

28 Comments

Linna Excel7/22/2019, 7:08:38 AM23 votes

I really have no clue what's going on at riot anymore.

Their philosophy has been terrible since 10cent took over. Leadership and vision seem non-apparent as a gamer on the outside. Counterplay has been dying since yasuo. Reworks are creating champs that have to be constantly nerfed because the pros are the only ones who can play them. Games are a little too fast and damage is a little too high. The new rune system has issues. I'm asking "what was riot thinking" a little more often than I should be. Qiyana got released and I still feel like she was two failed champ ideas merged into one. Top is a mess. The jungle seems to be worse than it's ever been. Ez is breaking stuff again. I'm seeing fewer and fewer people trying to defend riot. Not even reds will come onto the boards to defend things or interact with fans they've let it get so bad. For everything I've heard TFT seems like it was released 3 months too early while Twisted Treelines players seem to be crying from neglect. Riot has been slapping band-aids on ARAM trying to bring a semblance of balance, but that's lacking vision because there were bans then there weren't any bans again.

I think fortnite overtaking league in popularity really has riot rattled and exposed the company's flaws in the process.

Hayaishi27/22/2019, 3:31:12 PM14 votes

Balancing around pro play is the issue.

It is absolutely ridiculous that some champions sit at low win rate and pick rate and never get a single change while Aatrox, Sylas, Pyke get several patches dedicated to them.

The game seems to have no direction whatsoever. Every patch is a disappointment, there's bunch of bugs on many champions that have been there for more than a year and still don't get fixed.

GigglesO7/22/2019, 11:20:38 PM14 votes

Your title is wrong.

Riot's balancing is like trying to patch up a sinking boat with a thousand holes

Is more like

Trying to patch a ship by adding more holes.

Whisper877/22/2019, 6:53:59 PM12 votes

I agree with most of what you're saying here. A lot of what you say is unprecedented, has actually been in DOTA 2 for a long time, but to your point, one of the biggest complaints about DotA is that the champs are so strong in very specific ways that the point of entry is extremely high. To a certain extent, champion skills are designed to break the rules of the game. But there does come a certain point where there are 0 hard and fast global rules, and literally every principle of the game has several exceptions. And that is the point we're talking about, when it becomes near impossible to balance, and very unsatisfying to play if you don't enjoy the new or newly reworked champs, or hard falling in line with the meta.

To me, the problem is that despite what you say, Riot still has not nailed down a solid direction for the game. They have opted not to have stationary target for design, which they can consistently design champs to fall I line with, and continually refine. Instead, they have opted to follow the feedback of redditers and casual players who have very little truly objective understanding of the game, and to prioritize spectator enjoyment over player enjoyment. The result is a meta that is spiraling at a very, very high rate, like a dog chasing it's take. Everyone playing damage comps? Buff tanks. Tanks too strong? Buff crit adc. Crit adc too strong? Nerf them and buff assassins. Etc, etc. It's just an endless, pointless circle. The definition of change for the sake of change. Riot says they want LOL to become a tradition just like pro traditional sports, but think about how rapidly and erratically LOL changes compared to how slowly and intentionally NFL or NBA games have changed. Riot has completely done away with the idea of a core set of fundamentals that are unchanging and that cantinually be practiced/refined. Imagine if in basketball you spent your entire life becoming a 90% free throw shooter, then one day the NBA said, "Hey, turns out free throws aren't exciting and it's too reliable of a way to get points. So to shake things up we're going to make it so that you only get 1 free throw under all circumstances, and we're going to allow waaaay more physical contact before calling a foul". Riot makes changes of that scale multiple times per season.

An example of this is how quickly international competition has caught up to Korea over the past year and a half or so, particularly EU. Now I'm fully willing to concede that other regions are finally getting on their level to a certain degree. But this shrinking of the gap has been extremely rapid. Why? Because Korea as a region has long been touted as the regional who most rigidly adheres to fundamentals of the game. Not the meta, no. They have been known to bring out pocket picks more often then say, NA. But unlike EU they don't do it to just roll the dice on the individual mechanics of a certain player, or just to play something they opponents aren't prepared for. You'd instead see Korea do something like pull out Maokai top at world's after he has been virtually unplayed at the pro level for a year. Because they approach the game with forethought and understanding, and know that while Mao in general was mediocre or even subpar at the time, his kit in that specific game, against those specific champs, he was actually a very strong pick.

This almost manic need to make more fighting happen, and happen earlier in the game, is purely a pacification of the very casual player. And is causing Riot to do something which has been a downfall of several other games including WOW. They bow down to the casual Reddit shouters, and when they get a somewhat positive response, they push and push in that same direction until the game breaks. They only recently started to pump the breaks. Riot Jatt noted in his recent change to Scuttle that he admitted it was very restrictive to put so much emphasis on early Scuttle, effectively guranteeing some sort of confrontation which was FORCED onto players. Which meant your solo laners had to pick champs which had advantages in skirmishes early, or would have guaranteed lane push priority. Sure fighting is cool, but when every game starts out the same way, it gets very boring over time. And yeah, maybe solo lane picks opened up a bit, but you know what got hard pinched? Jungle picks. That change to Scuttle demonstrates Jatt's veteran and objective knowledge of the game, and why I am sad to see him leave the balance team.

This also explains EU recent power surge. They are a region known for taking risky, bold plays on an individual basis, and whip out pocket or wildcard picks without any specific motivation to do so. Think of how China was known for years as the region that aggressively looks for team fights over and over. EU is the same thing on the scope of skirmishing and dueling. Even pro casters have stated that the meta currently favors people willing to repeatedly go for 60/40 plays, which should have been a freaking monumental red flag for the entire community, if AT THE PROFESSIONAL LEVEL the meta is to throw up risky plays over and over. 60/40 plays are by definition, not fundamentally sound. So the most efficient way to play the game is to ignore fundamentals? Wtf...This is why any sort of organized play game has to adhere to at least a core handful of fundamentals in it's perpetuity. And it's why the game and recent reworks have seemed to lack structure and long-term thought, because Riot has been intentionally been dumping anything that resembles a traditional fundamental out the window and instead offering up half-baked fan service.

I'll be the first one to say that I got sick of Korea and China being the end all be all of pro play, but I was very much hoping that when they were dethroned it would be because the other regions caught up, secured their own fundamentals. Not because Riot decided to throw them a bone.

Nea1047/22/2019, 3:28:20 PM11 votes

They just aren't good at their own job. Does anyone believe that the game has gone downhill by some kind of accident?

KalokasIsMyDaddy7/22/2019, 8:47:04 AM10 votes

They're just trying to give new additions to the game and they fail miserably. For example, look at Zoe, Neeko and Sylas. They all have the same premise, take something from the enemy or the ally. Zoe takes summoner spells, Neeko takes ally forms, and Sylas takes ultimates. It's the same basic concept recycled.

Riot just doesn't understand what to do. They release champions, nerf them, rework them and rinse repeat. Look at Banner of Command. They had been trying to fix it for ages and then they just removed it with no intention to bring it back. They kind of reworked IE and reverted it again. Riot doesn't know what they want to do and they can't make up their mind. They made Tahm Kench into a solo lane monster, and then they made him completely useless in every lane. Like I honestly don't understand what they're TRYING to do with the game at this point.

iTaLenTZ7/22/2019, 7:19:06 PM6 votes

I am just glad I played during season 3 through 5 and have fond memories of those times. Season 6 was already going downhill, I almost entirely skipped season 7, season 8 I came back because I missed League and wanted to hit diamond again but it just wasn't the same any more.

This season I haven't played a single game. I quit around October last year and the entry-treshold is just too high for the things you have already mentioned. I feel like I need to read an entire encyclopedia to just understand the new champs that have been released since then, the reworks, reworked items, new items, new jungle, minion changes, lane changes, tower changes, runes and masteries changes, general game changes like gold income ect ect. Its just too much! I played League for 5 years and I can conclude that I don't know anything about today´s game.

Besides all that I don't like it any more. Riot has clearly alienated veteran players in detriment of newer younger players. I have no idea if they have succeeded or not. If yes then they did the right move, if no then they lost a huge chunk out of their loyal playerbase and got nothing in return.

General Esdeath 7/22/2019, 10:03:07 PM5 votes

Always remember the older balance days

summoner 14 deals less damage than summoner 21 blocks, but ignite ticks for 5 seconds while barrier only lasts for 2, meaning there's still room for an outplay by waiting it out. Defense had higher numbers while damage had more time.

Truedjinn7/22/2019, 10:33:15 PM5 votes

Biggest problem of riot is facing right now is that the dev team are pleasing proplayers. I mean it is awkward to know which champion getting nerfed next patch just by watching one of those proplayers complaining ( not saying names ).

Galio has been gutted because a proplayer complained about it, and like always riot balance team started pleading him with the usual, u get what I am saying.

Another clear evidence was a video posted on YouTube, seeing a proplayer playing galio mid and compiling about his ap stats. Amazingly enough the next patch they buffed him to oblivion and we all remember the one shot ap galio mid.

There are other examples but the point I want to make clear here is that wasting your time trying to find what champions are viable this patch are not found in many videos on YouTube and that's an honest statement.

Goin to wierd mechanics, the first champion with overloaded kit was revin and you can make a simple comparison with other old champions from her release year. Like always champ released, no body knows to play them yet or how to build them they get buffed and buffed...and buffed until they are totally broken.

Clearly in our day and age every meta strong champion has a some form of dash but having to much of it bricks the mechanic it self like irilia or revin.

Champions are not designed today to have any counter play instead if you a counter they have a skill to negate that for example when did the original irilia have a dmg reduction in her old kit they just put the skilles to negate counter play.

Take reworked aatrox for an example, u missed ur q dont worry u can dash and change where ur q lands.

Getting bullied out of lane, no problem infinite sustain.

And rune system made it worse, till this day when ever I talk anyone who used to play the game back in S3 his first thing he says the rune refoged ruined the game.

They might claim that riot employees play the game but that doesn't mean it's true, I mean how can u balance a game without playing it...hmm

The answer is simple. You go ask the professionals, and who are the professionals...there you go

In end me and you dont have a saying in this messed up game, just try to start looking to another game that still respect their player base opinion.

Deνiruchi7/23/2019, 12:57:09 PM3 votes

It's simple, pro play. They're balancing everything around pro play and they want flashy moves so they don't have boring long games that people hate watching. They're at the point they don't care anymore about the state of the game, and rather just milk all they can as fast as possible, just look at prestige being pumped like candy into the game or most of the skins going to extremely popular champions (more often than before). They simply don't care anymore, and it seems they can afford to do it.

AirKingNeo7/22/2019, 6:13:33 PM2 votes

Aatrox in his current state is a success though and isn't hard to balance.

Swain and Sylas mini reworks make no sense to me though.

Lovelle7/23/2019, 3:22:37 PM1 votes

I've never been into any of the new champions, much prefer the older, simpler designs. Don't care about flashy mechanics either, nor do I enjoy watching them. All that matters to me is that the champion works and feels rewarding to play, but not at the cost of balance.

I still play the same champs that I started with back in S2, except for GP and Ryze, who both have been changed significantly over the years.

On a separate, but related note, the newer rune system just really throws things out of whack. I think the older mastery/rune should be brought back (and keystones removed) if this game is ever going to be remotely balanced.