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[Diamond Design] Why is a Core Fantasy so Important?

Joushi·2/24/2015, 1:24:58 PM·37 votes·5,417 views

Hey guys, sorry I’ve been MIA for a couple weeks. Been pretty busy recently, got to see Gbay, Lilypichu, and Snoopeh last week, which was pretty cool. I’m also back in diamond now, so the name of this series is once again accurate. I’m no longer a platinum plebian (jk I love you guys). I’m also now officially in the top 1,000 Lulus! according to that site anyway.

Anyway, make sure you go check out our previous discussion and if that isn’t enough to satisfy you, we’ve got a larger feast available over in the Central Hub. Like I said, I don’t think I’ll be able to get these out on a weekly basis much, so they’ll probably just be coming out whenever I have time, but no more than once a week.

Alright I think that’s all I needed to say before we get into our discussion.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Kassadin_0.jpg

#Why is a Core Fantasy so Important?

This is a bit of a break from our more focused discussions and starts looking more at general design principles. I started thinking about this when I saw the new Kassadin nerfs on the PBE, where they are fairly significantly reducing the range of his ultimate and I immediately thought “this is the wrong way to nerf Kassadin.” The question then became, why is that the wrong way to nerf? The answer to me, is that it destroys the character’s core fantasy, so we’ll be talking about what that is and what it means for design in League.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/318/3/0/kalista_blood_moon_wallpaper_by_adriancio-d86eoac.jpg by Adriancio

#What is a Core Fantasy?

Most simply, a character’s core fantasy is the reason you play that character, why you’d pick that character over a character might seem otherwise similar. For new players, this tends to be almost more important than for more experienced players. For me, I tend to play characters who have a more fantasy that promotes utility and zone control at long range. Because of this, the two characters I played most last season are Lulu and Ziggs, and Lulu is one of my most played champions in the new season as well. I’ve also at different points played a lot of Orianna, Syndra, Viktor, Kennen, Vel’koz, and AP Kog’maw.

In reference to characters who have been seeing a lot of discussion recently, particularly on these boards, we’ll look at Kalista and Kassadin.

Kalista’s core fantasy, in my opinion, is two-part. The first is her synergy with her soul-bound partner, and the second is the ability to endlessly kite around a target. This is demonstrated by her unique passive and two of her abilities directly interacting with her chosen partner.

Kassadin’s is his incredible mobility and ability to single out a mage and destroy them. His iconic ult, a dash on a low cooldown, and two of his damage abilities are single target, one of which gives him a magic damage shield.

A core fantasy is also what makes a champion unique, something that no other champion does, or multiple things no other champion does in combination. No other character can teleport the same way Shen does, saving an ally with a giant shield. No other champion can reveal the entire enemy team regardless of where they are like Twisted Fate. No other champion can turn an enemy into an ally like Mordekaiser can. This is a champion’s core fantasy.

http://loltourneys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/league-of-legends-guide-to-team-fight1.jpg

#When Fantasies Collide

One major problem of core fantasy and core gameplay styles is when they significantly overlap. Generally speaking, there is very little reason to play Diana over Akali, or vice versa, at different points in time. Their current kits are simply too similar, a multi-dash assassin who can survive as a pseudo-frontliner. Yes there are important differences in their kits, one uses invisibility and one uses shields and tankiness to survive, but they are both generally played from the same positions, fulfill a similar assassin role, and therefore only one of them is ever really played at a single time.

Another place we see this is the set of tank junglers, Zac, Amumu, Nautilus, and Sejuani. One of them has tended to fulfill the role of long distance initiate, heavy crowd control, tanky jungler. Right now the dominant one is Sejuani, and the others are relatively unseen. At times, the dominant one has been Zac, or Amumu, or Nautilus, but almost never all at the same time. This is largely because the core fantasies they provide are too similar, and it simply becomes a matter of which one has higher base stats.

Other places where this is/has been true, or where I’ve seen it argued:

  • Zed vs Talon (AD Assassin)
  • Lucian vs Graves (upon Lucian release) (burst ADC)
  • Ziggs vs Xerath vs Vel’koz (long range damage mage)
  • Sona vs Nami (pre Sona rework)

http://dicerz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/league-of-legends-wall-paper-face-off-guide-to-league-of-legends-dicerz.jpg

#Balancing With Core Fantasy in Mind

This is the main point of this article, the reason I started writing it.

When balancing a champion, the character’s core fantasy needs to remain intact. Everything that doesn’t contribute to a character’s core fantasy should be removed first. Here I’ll be exploring the champions where this is most relevant right now, Kassadin and Kalista.

Kassadin

Kassadin’s current potential nerfs to his ultimate reduce his range by nearly half, but this is a significant portion of his core identity, which I established earlier to be his mobility and single target burst. By reducing his mobility, Kassadin’s strengths and core fantasy are likely going to be reduced to the point where he has no real obvious strengths. Instead, Kassadin’s weaknesses should be amplified. What are Kassadin’s weaknesses? Supposedly it’s a weak laning phase, but this isn’t really true. His magic damage shield is very strong and he has nearly infinite mana sustain.

How do we change this? Some potential changes we could make are making the shield scale harder with AP so it isn’t as strong early in the game and reducing significant amounts of early poke. We could make his Q do less damage to minions and perhaps not give the magic shield when used on targets other than champions so that he is no longer incentivized to farm with it.

What other changes to his kit would further solidify his single target burst, high mobility, weak early laning? His E could be changed to something that is no longer both AOE and a slow, instead choosing one or the other. At the same time, his ultimate could be changed to something similar to Ezreal’s E, where it only does damage to the closest target, or like Mordekaiser’s Q, where it does more damage to if it only hits a single target. All of these changes keep Kassadin’s core fantasy intact while giving him more distinctive weaknesses and not being simple number changes.

As a brief aside, when balancing, especially when champions are problems over a significant amount of time, making a champion stronger or weaker should not be a goal worth having, rather fixing the reason that makes them a problem should be instead.

Kalista

Shifting our sights to a different target, Kalista has also been a champion with a lot of complaints leveled against her and is likely to receive a nerf in the near future.

How should these changes be handled?

Well first, using the aforementioned core fantasy of this character, Kalista is defined by her ability to infinitely kite and her partnership with the soulbound character. What parts of her kit don’t have strong attachments to these aspects of her core fantasy?

First, and most likely to be nerfed, is the infinite stacking of her rend passive against Baron and Dragon. There is no reason for an ADC to have stronger objective control than a jungler, being able to hypothetically out-smite even those junglers known for securing these objectives: Nunu and Cho’gath. By capping her damage against these targets a lot of her power that isn’t tied to her core fantasy is removed.

The second place where Kalista can be nerfed is her Q damage. Her spear does a lot more damage than it needs to, when it is neither necessary nor sufficient to promote play around her skirmishing nature or her partnership.

What areas should be the last place to be touched for this character? Her passive, W passive, and ult are the most important parts of her kit to her core fantasy, and apart from small number tweaks, ought to remain intact.

#Defining a Core Fantasy

Importantly, many characters have overlapping or unclear core fantasies, or supposed core fantasies that don’t quite line up with how the character actually plays. What makes Aatrox unique and causes you to play him over another champion? It used to be his revive passive and significant jungle sustain. Those were nerfed, leaving him a fairly uninspired standard bruiser. Fiora is supposed to be the best duelist in Valoran, but instead tends to try and teamfight and make use of her significant, guaranteed pseudo-AOE damage. The aforementioned Ziggs vs Xerath long range mage niche is hard to differentiate between and Xerath is considered better due to his increased consistency. What can we do to give these characters a unique core fantasy?

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Aatrox_2.jpg

Step One

The first thing to do is figure out what makes that champion unique. In the case of Aatrox, being an attack speed based bruiser as is his current identity is not unique. Jax and Irelia have very similar roles, and Irelia sustains better than Aatrox. His revive is somewhat unique, but is shared with other characters. We’ll have to take a look at his lore then, Aatrox is identified as a figure known to turn the tides of battles by giving his team newfound fury.

Rather than simply giving him more attack-speed, he should be given a much stronger teamfighting ultimate. An AOE team-wide buff for his own team, or debuff on the enemy team seems most natural, giving him a unique aspect amongst the other attack-speed bruisers and a core fantasy.

http://www.newsoflegends.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/league-of-legends-ahri-fiora-skins-3589511.jpg

Step Two

The next thing is making sure that this character actually fulfills their core fantasy. Fiora has a supposed core fantasy, with a strong dueling nature. However, this isn’t reflected in her current kit. Her ultimate is probably the primary cause of this, as it does reduced damage when it hits the same target, and is thus incentivized to hit multiple targets. An easy, though probably insufficient, change would be to simply remove that restriction and rebalance based on that. I haven’t put enough thought into fixing Fiora, so hopefully someone can come up with a better idea.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Ziggs_2.jpg

Step Three

The last step for designing around a core fantasy is to make sure that no one else fulfills the same core fantasy.

For me, the most significant example of this is the Ziggs vs Xerath situation. Right now, they both fulfill a heavy poke, heavy AOE damage, and heavy waveclear niche. A while ago in Patch 3.13, Riot had identified Ziggs as a character meant to be quite effective against minions and towers. They removed his damage reduction against minions and increased his ult’s damage against them, and he became very good at this. Too good, in fact, and he was eventually nerfed, making his Q less consistent against enemy champions.

Around the same time, Xerath had his light rework. Xerath suddenly became even better at waveclearing than he used to be, and infringed on Ziggs’ niche, and outperforms him due to his more consistent poke as well as waveclear. Ziggs has since plummeted in pick rate, because he fulfills the same role but weaker.

A differentiation needs to be made between these two characters. I would propose a situation where one (Ziggs) becomes focused on waveclear and this damage is amplified, while his poke is already somewhat inconsistent, and the other (Xerath) becomes more focused on poke with weak waveclear. His damage to minions with spells would be reduced (half damage to minions?) while his poke remains strong and consistent. The two characters thus have a similar niche, but are sufficiently different that they need to be played differently to be played optimally.

http://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=http%3A%2F%2Floldb.gameguyz.com%2Fimages%2Fskins_big_skin_fid_path%2Fryze-professor.jpg&key=a45e967db0914c7fb472fd4381e6c85b&width=425

#Conclusions

This one seems to be filled with a lot more opinion than this series tends to, with a lot of uncertainties. It’s important for designers and Rioters to try and successfully determine what it is that defines a champion’s core fantasy, because (as will likely be demonstrated in the comments below), it will differ from player to player. Is it important to cater to the largest group? what is most unique? what you personally believe? It’s hard to answer.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What core fantasies are not healthy for the game?

Well, that’s all for now. I think I’m gonna start widening the scope of the series to what I mentioned last time. Items, maps, and other games with important lessons will likely start showing up at some point when relevant.

Of course, the disclaimer I tend to put: I am not the be-all end-all prophet of design and balance. What I say could very well be wrong in its entirety, but I think there’s something important behind the topic I’m discussing that makes it worth adding to the discourse for.

Thanks!

36 Comments

ModThe Djinn2/24/2015, 5:20:07 PM10 votes

{quoted}Snip!

You have some really good stuff here. Some really good stuff.

I also think you're missing one big point though: Champions have, in my opinion (Advanced warning: your disclaimer is basically exactly the one I attach to my own design thoughts), two Core Fantasies. We have a Core Fantasy in terms of champion lore, and a Core Fantasy in terms of in-game champion identity. Sometimes these sync up really well (Vi, Draven, and Sejuani are some of my classic examples), and sometimes these just feel off from one another (AP Yi, Poppy, Shen [crazy ninja tank that he is], and so forth).

Take Kalista as the example. While her mobility is definitely a unique point to her kit, the thing that really sets Kalista apart in both gameplay and character personality/lore is her soul-bound partner. The endless kiting is fun, unique, and exciting, but it is not quite as important to the champion's identity.

That tells me, if I were approaching the problem, that the one thing I don't want to touch is her soul-bond interaction -- unless it's very broken. It's not, so we move on.

Kalista does have some low-hanging fruit to prune, and you correctly identified where I think it lies: the immense objective control Kalista can bring to the table. That said, we run into a quandary here: Kalista's objective control is unique (especially among Marksmen), and potentially really fun for the player. What would the cost of removing this be as opposed to the potential for down-playing her mobility slightly? (For reference, I would like this toned down to not surpass Smite, but I think her having stronger objective control than other Marksmen is fine).

I'd argue that, in Kalista's case, her mobility is a good place to hit her. Not because it's necessarily too powerful, but because it's powerful enough that there's actually a good bit of power you can take out without really detracting from her identity as a champion. For example:

A Few Suggestions --Kalista's Martial Poise dash range is reduced by the amount that Kalista is slowed. --Kalista's Martial Poise is no longer increased by 25% when dashing backwards. --Kalista's detection angle for backwards jumps is decreased to X degrees. --Kalista's attack animation has been redesigned to have a longer pre-projectile animation (keeping her stationary longer while not actually decreasing the number of jumps, which gives opponents more time to react to a new position.

Any or all of these changes these preserve her identity as a highly mobile character who dashes around the map constantly, but they also remove some of the edge cases where this mechanic becomes oppressive to characters without good responses to it. In short, we're cutting into the dash's power budget, but leaving the base mechanic itself functioning. Kalista will still be a highly mobile Marksman -- in fact, she'll still be the highest mobility Marksman in terms of reliable dodging instead of one-time ability use -- but her mobility advantage will take a slight bit of a hit that will be most noticeable to the characters who she simply dominates currently.

To conclude, I think it's perfectly acceptable to nerf a core part of a champion's "Core Identity," so long as doing so doesn't remove what makes a champion unique. Kalista's Martial Poise is a deep enough mechanic that it has levers within it that can be tweaked without truely threatening her identity as a highly mobile Marksman.

Now, Kassadin has a slightly different issue.

Kassadin has been a problem child for a looooong time, both for his burst and for his safety. He is supposed to have a weak laning phase, but Poppy also has a weak laning phase, and we know how Riot feels about Poppy.

In short, Kassadin has a kit that screams "problematic." When he gets ahead his kit is oppressive: he can burst most people, escape anyone, and pressure other areas of the map incredibly well due to his superior mobility. He can pop into a teamfight, vaporize someone, and run so far away that you'll never catch him.

Something has to give. It can't be his laning phase, or we run into the Poppy issue: a character who is worthless...unless they get fed, and then woe betide you and your entire team. Riot typically doesn't like this kind of design for characters as hard to punish as Poppy and Kassadin.

I think this is why we saw the range nerf: it keeps him mobile (he can still pop around, blink over walls, and cover distance quickly), but it reduces his ability to engage from out of sight, blow up a squishy, and immediately vanish over a wall again. Kassadin retains his play pattern of a highly mobile burst mage, but he loses a bit of his ability to do so with impunity. The fantasy is still intact: it's just that the manifestation of that fantasy has been downplayed a bit for the sake of the other players in the game.

Now, your other suggestions are solid: a single-target blink might work, as would a narrower E cone, or even a mechanic where his Ultimate cooldown is only low if he has damaged an enemy champion (allowing for engages and retreats but cutting into Kassadin's ability to simply run across the entire map with each). All of these solutions change the way Kassadin plays more than a range decrease on his blink, however. The first and second reduce his reliability, while the third removes a Kassadin player's ability to have merry chases through the jungle.

Are they worth considering? Definitely. I think many suggestions, even some downright ridiculous ones, have at least some merit to discussing them. But your suggestions seem more like topics for a Kassadin rework of some scale. If you don't want to rework Kassadin, I'd say the same thing I said for Kallista is true for Kassadin: you can nerf his incredible mobility in a way that's healthier for the game without removing Kassadin's identity as a highly mobile blink assassin/mage. Even with the range decrease he's still the most mobile mage aside from an Ulting Ahri...and she only gets three uses with non-AoE damage on a long cooldown. That says to me that Kassadin's identity and fantasy is still intact, even if it is reduced a little bit.

Also, on an unrelated note, you have no idea how much I enjoyed seeing this disclaimer:

Of course, the disclaimer I tend to put: I am not the be-all end-all prophet of design and balance. What I say could very well be wrong in its entirety, but I think there’s something important behind the topic I’m discussing that makes it worth adding to the discourse for.

As someone how has been an active part of design and game mechanic creation forums for a long time now, I have an enormous amount of respect for a designer who can admit their own potential oversights or failings. Even though I think you're largely correct (minus the few points discussed earlier), I needed to call this part in particular out as indicative of a good design analyst: fairly confident in his/her appraisal of a given game quality, yet always open to the possibility that he/she is incorrect. It invites discussion and necessary conversation in a way that heavy-handed certainty just doesn't do.

In short -- I've never stumbled across your articles before, but this article and that disclaimer have made me want to keep an eye out for more!

-The Djinn

Kobold2/24/2015, 4:09:43 PM4 votes

I may be trash tier for ranked but what is your thoughts on the Ashe v Kalista problem where Kalista fills the exact same niches (Initiation, Perma kite, and Vision) but is better in almost all aspects. I feel its very similar to the Lucian v Graves issue that we have seen before.

Centuros2/25/2015, 2:11:46 AM4 votes

I still think Kalista's passive needs to be toned down a bit (though maybe the 5.4 nerf will help a little). The amount of jumps she gets is a little over the top, seeing that it makes her immune to melee characters if she has a skilled user and enough attack speed.

To use a super extreme example, your core fantasy can be that you are 100% invincible at all times, but that doesn't mean balance should LET you be.

Mandang02/24/2015, 7:34:38 PM3 votes

I'd love to see more on your "Food For Thought".

I think Riot's echoed your sentiments about retaining core identity/fantasy, even on the topic of Kassadin, and we've seen them attempt to nerf Kassadin without hitting his mobility in the past. And yet, now we're here. I don't think Riot had a change of heart - I bet they'd still say they prefer to emphasize strengths and weaknesses rather than homogenize a kit - but over a year into the Kassadin balance experiment, they finally gave into the notion that the problem in front of them was the actual problem.

I think extreme mobility is likely an unhealthy fantasy, and I think a lot of the tradeoffs people propose for mobility won't be effectual due to how mobility allows champs to avoid those weaknesses. Durability in particular seems a false tradeoff as assassins/mages already lack kit durability, and what small differences you can create through base stats are more than made up for by cleaner targeting through gapclosers. Pre-6 weakness is IMO one of Riot's longest-held fallacies, and is very easy to get through by potion stacking. Not saying it doesn't exist, but the extent to which it makes up for assassins getting their kill button at 6 is debatable. For an assassin, I think the relevant tradeoffs are damage and control, but I think those only work (somewhat) in offering trades between mages and assassins, and I think Riot would be hard-pressed to sell a low-damage assassin, even if it was more mobile than the average assassin. Also on that note, I think you'd see the assassin simply itemize around their low damage, with flat damage procs and CDR, which makes the tradeoff less legitimate (maybe something like AD bruiser Fizz)

Great read & looking forward to the next!

Raptamei2/24/2015, 5:43:15 PM3 votes

I don't agree with this one.

The overlap problem has nothing to do with "fantasy" or "what the character is supposed to do". There is no lore and the game setup is so artificial as to make it impossible to identify with a character (plus you're supposed to pick the best champion for the job anyway, not your favourite one - at least that's how it should be, but Riot is sending mixed messages by selling skins).

The overlap problem is because there is 1 meta and 5 roles into which 124 champions are crammed. Each role doesn't have enough dimensions to enable more than about 10 or so champions with strategic differences, so there is overlap and people only pick the best. There is no point in having Nautilus AND Zac AND Sejuani, the only reason there's more than one of them is because Riot wanted to sell more champions. (This is where the game's business model hampers its gameplay)

Kassadin has a unique strategic strength, but instead of nerfing his weaknesses to give him a strategic niche (the Dota way) Riot chose to nerf his strengths because for some reason Riot is opposed to strategy in champion selection, probably due to the business model (again). This only reinforces the fact that when there's no strategic differentiation, people will only pick the best champions. And there will be even fewer viable champions.

Migrañaboy2/25/2015, 12:07:03 AM2 votes

At last, somebody with a legit background (diamond tier) to post opinions about current strong champs. +1

SIayton2/25/2015, 1:43:49 AM2 votes

I personally think they should just completely rework Kassadin's kit. He's not interesting enough to warrant keeping the same and as is now, his nerfs have completely neutered him. He's one of those broken by design characters that's either always going to be good or just be so nerfed numbers wise that he's unplayable. I think a kit rework is in order for him to really fulfill his "super high mobility magic ninja" role without being too ridiculous to deal with.

Verandure2/25/2015, 2:23:49 AM2 votes

Urgot: the "Anti-carry" Kassadin: the "Anti-mage assassin" Galio: the "Anti-mage tank"

These three have the more problematic themes, in my opinion. Much like social groups in the real word; anything described by "anti-[something else]" is typically a very negative thing. Having these guys strong (Kassadin to a lesser extent) diminishes the viability of their reciprocal. A strong Galio represses mages out of mid lane; a strong Urgot represses carries out of bot lane (or is oppressive in top lane, in his current state).

Their core design theme is to be rock, paper, scissors to something else; a philosophy that has; since, been abandoned by Riot. I, personally, don't think these are bad things when used properly. A strong Anti-carry could; potentially, force teams to change meta-strategy from champion select (again, something consigned to oblivion by Riot's design team).

I'm not honestly sure about Kassadin's identity as an anti-mage, anymore. There's not much in his kit other than his passive which lends to that identity -- he assassinates AD just as easily as AP.

YossarianSensei2/24/2015, 7:22:08 PM1 votes

I disagree with this

There's a lot of factors that go into picking a champion, it'd be silly if only 1 champion fulfilled a core fantasy.

EX: I like assassins but think Akali looks and plays like a slut. If Diana weren't in the game, i'd be at a loss.

Solaxo2/24/2015, 5:33:54 PM1 votes

"Hey guys, sorry I’ve been MIA for a couple weeks. "

Uhm who the heck are you?

DanofDemacia2/24/2015, 6:57:45 PM1 votes

What are your thoughts on luxs niche? Why choose lux over ziggs, Xerath, or velkoz.

kDrakari2/24/2015, 11:04:41 PM1 votes

I don't remember if I specifically said this or just agreed with it when somebody else said it, but I personally don't think this change is too big of an issue in regards to Kassadin's "Core Fantasy". He still has a very significant dash on a very low cooldown, and from its new range it can be tuned small amounts in other areas (recast cooldown, cost reset cooldown, AoE size) or his other abilities can be given a bit more power if necessary. I only have a problem in that I think it massively overcorrects when he doesn't seem to be nearly as oppressively strong as he was a year ago when he comparatively got smaller nerfs at any time and anything related to his ultimate was handled with extreme care. I mean, compare this nerf to the previous one: "He's a little too strong in lane, so 10 damage off his Q" suddenly becomes "Can only gap close when already in range of ADC, escape doesn't leave range of ADC".

I mean, I haven't played him after the change, but it just seems like a really big nerf when he was only a bit strong.

No disagreement on the importance of Core Fantasy in general though, there's a reason underpowered champions are played and it's not just because of Nemesis Draft.