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Why does Riot sacrifice gameplay experience for balance?

LVL 5 PORO·1/12/2018, 5:08:06 PM·76 votes·4,262 views

I know everyone likes to meme about the balance pattern of: nerf a champion, then nerf the item that makes them OP, thus leaving the aforementioned champion in the dumpster. But another troubling pattern I would like to address is Riot sacrificing gameplay experience for balance. What I mean is, when a champion is a balancing nightmare, Riot follows a predictable pattern to "fix" them.

  1. Champion is overpowered.
  2. Community complains.
  3. Riot nerfs champion, but instead of nerfing what makes them problematic, they nerf something completely unrelated.
  4. Champion is still problematic and the community is still upset.
  5. Riot hits the champion with a brutal nerf to their kits numbers.
  6. Champion is still problematic.
  7. Riot, unable to come up with a solution, makes the champions gameplay experience awful.

A few examples are Leblanc, Rengar, Kat, Ahri, Elise, and we might as well add Zoe to the list soon. When Riot is unable to properly balance a champion, they instead gut that champions gameplay experience, making them feel awful to play as. If Riot cannot make a champion viable without making them feel bad to play as, they should go back to the drawing board. Intentionally ruining a champion so that you dont have to deal with them is not a solution.

129 Comments

wildfox991/12/2018, 7:01:50 PM38 votes

A few examples are Leblanc, Rengar, Kat, Ahri, Elise, and we might as well add Zoe to the list soon.

riot team biggest problem is that they don't want to admit their mistakes

many of the champion that you mentioned were easy to balance,for example ahri's skill camp got nerfed over and over (E nerf,damage reduction) while it's since s5 when she got reworked that every ahri main is saying that her Q movement speed is making her kit problematic and that it should be removed (ahri mains are the first who don't like ahri being that safe) something similar happened for rengar rework (and now they might realized that so they are reverting his Q) but they are too stubborn,better nerf a champion untill he becomes unplayable and wait for reworking him,instead of admitting their mistakes or listening their community

9L9L9L9L9L9L9L1/12/2018, 5:18:03 PM18 votes
  1. Champion is overpowered.
  2. Community complains.
  3. Riot nerfs champion, but instead of nerfing what makes them problematic, they nerf something completely unrelated.
  4. Champion is still problematic and the community is still upset.
  5. Riot hits the champion with a brutal nerf to their kits numbers.
  6. Champion is still problematic.
  7. Riot, unable to come up with a solution, makes the champions gameplay experience awful.

That's sound a lot like Graves during Season 6 and 7

rokarion1/12/2018, 5:58:08 PM14 votes

they already did this to zoe with her r nerf. Paddle star feels shitty now, but she can still 1 shot. Didn't fix the problem, just made her less fun.

TheWizardM1/12/2018, 5:21:34 PM8 votes

cough nunu cough. He didn't get nerfed directly a whole lot, but still, his gameplay feels lackluster since the latest season.

NineTailedMystic1/12/2018, 11:22:56 PM7 votes

Ahri would have been fine if they just killed DFG and not changed her.

Usernamehere12351/13/2018, 4:50:01 AM6 votes

I think this pattern you're noticing is actually symptomatic of the companies organization, i.e. how they structure their teams, and what those teams do.

Just about every example you listed (except Elise) were reworked, and subsequently nerfed in numbers. Here's the process that Riot goes through such that the pattern you're noticing occurs.

Riot has a reworking team, and a champion team. Both of these teams create what is fundamentally new abilities through reworks or new champions. Not once has a champion been released, or a champion reworked, to have an ability of theirs fundamentally changed shortly after (to my knowledge). This is because the Champion and GU (gameplay update) teams don't stick around much with the champion after they're finished. They finish the champion, and they move on.

So, if certain abilities happen to be fundamentally overpowered by nature of design, the guys who nerf those abilities are the Live Balance team. These guys don't change abilities, and they don't revert fundamental changes to kits (i.e. reverting new abilities to old ones). They mostly deal in nerfing numbers, and perhaps scraping off excess strength that one ability might have (a good example of this is Kassadin's Q silence; the silence was removed, but the core identity of his Q didn't change much).

Usually, if a champion is a miss instead of a hit, it takes months or even years (hello, Aatrox) for that champion to see actual gameplay updates (new abilities, or entirely reworked abilities). I agree with you that this is a problem, and I think there's a fairly simple solution.

I think that the GU and Champion Creation teams should stick around with their work after it's been released. They shouldn't be so hesitant to change these champions after they've been released, because often changing these broken abilities into balanced abilities is better for game health. So why don't they do this?

A big reason, I think, is that champions and their kits directly tie into Riot's income source. Zoe might have a really broken CC ability, but changing that one week after release might be a huge hit to her sales, purely because it's been changed. This could also cause a huge backlash, because one player might examine the release kit of Zoe, and decide to buy her with RP; only to find that one week later, her kit has changed in some way that he didn't like, and so now he regrets buying the champion with RP, and might furthermore complain about it.

By admission, this doesn't apply as much to GU champions, as a significant portion of players might already own the champion who's been reworked, but it still counts, even a little.

Another reason why they might not change these champions fundamentally after release is because it's risky. There's no guarantee that number changes won't solve the problem, and adding new abilities into the game, or entirely reworked ones, is always a balancing issue. They could just as easily make a champion worse, especially if they jump the gun only a week, or even only a month into a champion release.

Orbv1/12/2018, 8:28:21 PM6 votes

Or like Karma, they decide they don't like something, ignore it for 2 years, and then throw it away and say it was hard to work with.

Kind of sounds like the Lore too...and the Journal of Justice...

ChaddyFantome1/13/2018, 7:10:06 AM5 votes

**Community: **Just lower the range on Leblanc s E to make her have to commit more and not be so safe. Riot: Nah, lets Gut her Passive, Neuter her W and force her to Max Q to make her wave clear even better instead!

  • Leb becomes even more problematic.

Riot: Better nerf.

9L9L9L9L9L9L9L1/12/2018, 7:08:51 PM4 votes

Then we have this guy, Ryze. Guys has gone through so many reworks and changes, but he can never be balance.

on fire1/12/2018, 6:17:48 PM4 votes

Rengar and Kat are extremely viable and strong right now what game are you playing?