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Genuinely curious about some design decisions.

Rathar Dashing·4/5/2019, 2:57:35 AM·13 votes·8,891 views

I've been looking into a lot of the mechanics in League, and I've noticed some things I'm not sure I fully understand the reason for. If someone, possibly a rioter, could explain them to me, that would be awesome.

Why is there an attack speed cap? There's a cap of 2.5 attack speed for basic attacks. However, there are four ways to circumvent this. There's Lethal Tempo, which allows you to ignore the cap for several seconds while attacking, there's Hail of Blades, which lets you ignore the cap for your first 3 basic attacks, and there's Jinx's passive which lets her ignore the attack speed cap when she kills an enemy/tower, and then there are abilities like Jayce has where he attacks at a set attack speed (his is 3.0). What's the reason behind this cap? Why 2.5 specifically, and not another amount? Should more champions be allowed to break the cap with their passives and abilities, such as Varus?
Why do certain abilities scale every level, and others scale every few levels? To illustrate what I mean, let's look at Ashe's passive. The power of the slow increases by 3 every 3 levels. From 15% at level 1, to 18% at level 4. Why is this ability not just increased every level, by 1% every time you level up? If it's because of the maximum being changed (Ashe slow caps at level 16 at 30%), then why not add a cap similar to Vi's old passive? What's the reason behind specific power spikes for passives like this, and why is it not shown more across all champions?
Why is slow resist such a rare mechanic? Felt weird having just 2 points, so I thought I'd add this little curiosity. From all I can tell, the only instances of slow resist in the game are on boots of swiftness, Urgot W, and the unflinching/phase rush runes. Certain champions like Garen and Master Yi can ignore slows, but it's not the same. Why don't more champions have this mechanic? Do you think it could be added to more champions, or perhaps another item some time in the future?

Thank you for reading. Feel free to ask your own design questions in the comments.

15 Comments

AHarmlessTaco4/5/2019, 3:45:36 AM8 votes

I believe that the attack speed cap is set to 2.5 to encourage reasonable builds that include actual damage items and to make kiting relevant. Looking back at Kog'Maw when breaking the cap was introduced, the champion became an immobile turret and it hurt game-play overall. I cannot answer why Lethal Tempo allows you to exceed the limit, as it potentially reintroduces the same issue because of its non-existent cooldown. I was not actually aware that Jinx's passive allowed her to break the limit; if I had to guess, I would say it is because her Q steroid is a 130% attack speed bonus at max rank/stacks and it probably helps to diffuse some of the loss of that steroid upon hitting full build as well as to boost her ability to take inhibitor towers and subsequently the inhibitor itself. Frankly, I am very surprised that Varus does not get this effect as well. As for Jayce and Hail of Blades, I think it is to simply make the empowered attacks feel better. Hail of Blades especially, as it is supposed to be a burst tool.
Scaling per level vs scaling at intervals is a way to balance champions' power curves and to give power spikes, as you mentioned, the most obvious case being Kayle right now. It may have been decided that Ashe should have access to her full slow by level 16 as opposed to 18 in order to boost her mid-end game power at the expense of her final end game power, again filling out the curve that she is intended to have. I think that saying it grows in power every 3 levels is simply a little bit more elegant than saying it grows every level but randomly stops at 16. Another reason why abilities gain power at intervals may be to noticeably increase that ability's power; you might not notice Ashe's slow gradually becoming more powerful every level, but you might notice it jumping a bit in power if it gains every 3 levels instead.
I think the reasoning behind having low amounts of slow resist and tenacity available has three main points: the only answer to snowballed champions is CC, players feel bad when they successfully land a CC only to have it ignored, and to ensure that slows have their proper effect on self-slows such as Vi or Varus charging their abilities.

SirHydro4/5/2019, 2:59:07 PM3 votes

Lmao this guy expects Riot to explain, let alone understand anything in this game. Where are they at? Where's the Rioter? No where. They don't know.

Weiner the Pooh4/5/2019, 7:21:13 AM2 votes

My question from a design perspective is why do ranged characters, get both the initial range advantage, but most have a dash/movespeed as well. I think Riot greatly ignores just how strong of an advantage that range is.

y0r1ck4/5/2019, 6:10:54 PM2 votes

It looks to me like you want things to be more consistent so that they're easier to understand. I think that's a valuable goal. Hopefully a knowledgeable rioter can explain, until then have an upvote.

DarkTree14/5/2019, 5:09:02 AM1 votes

i think the main reasoning behind slow resist being rare is that:

1: the DURATION (not the intensity) of the slows are reducable by tenacity, which is also somewhat rare in and of itself, but that's another topic - this'd be fine but it stacks with slow resistance, which reduces the intensity of the slows, which leads into my second point

2: some champions have slows as their only form of crowd control, gapclosing, etc. it's very noticable when people do things like pick phase rush into a champion like nasus, olaf, karthus, or even someone like darius who depends heavily on slows for keeping people in melee range, and then they have no way to consistently get on top of or away from enemies, they become quite weak

i'm very sick right now so i apologize if i worded this weird. other design decisions are just like that i guess

Hayaishi24/5/2019, 9:42:51 AM1 votes

As a Varus main im very salty they decided to allow Jinx's passive to break the AS cap when her passive already gives her a huge burst of movement speed, it has more situations to be useful and it can be proc on towers gives her attack speed as well while Varus' passive sole purpose is to increase his AS which Jinx already gets on her Q with way more uptime anyways.

Riot's design and balance choices make no sense to me and it feels like they just play favorites.