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How to make a champion ''fun to play against''

Dokkaebi·3/22/2019, 3:58:48 PM·3 votes·2,635 views

I'm gonna start this off by mentioning that what I'm about to say is largely subjective so keep that in mind. Also please don't mind the example champions. They're just there to help visualize the ideas.

  • Clear counterplay and healthy skill curve

When you get killed the first thing that should pop in to your mind is ''What led to this moment?'' The answer to this should always be ''I misplayed and the enemy outplayed me'' Sometimes this doesn't seem to apply. At times it can become outright challenging to recognize what you could have done better to not die if the enemy is good with their champion. This is guaranteed to happen when a champion has an overloaded kit aka too many tools for different situations unless the champion's numbers get nerfed in to oblivion (release VGU Irelia, release VGU Akali, release VGU Aatrox, Yasuo, etc.)

In another scenario instead of the ''impossible to beat when mastered'' a player might also feel cheated when being beaten by a champion that brings an equal amount of effectiveness despite taking way less time to master than average. So you're not gonna get the ''Oh damn. I got outplayed. The enemy definitely deserved that kill'' feeling. It just ends up feeling cheap for both the player and opponent (low elo: Garen,Warwick, etc.) (high elo: Janna, JarvanIV, etc.)

  • No time based win condition

Nobody likes playing against a Nasus and having to either constantly keep him from stacking or having to force fights, because he's constantly pressuring you with the fact that if you don't win within a certain time frame he's gonna turn in to an unbeatable raid boss.

Similarly to this nobody likes being pressured under turret for the whole laning phase, because of the immense early game kill pressure the enemy laner has. It leads to a very uninteractive gameplay experience (Renekton , Pantheon , Pyke, Fizz, etc.)

  • The whole purpose of the champion isn't to make one other person's life a living hell

Counterpicking is a core part of the gameplay and will always be. But who likes getting counterpicked? No one

Are you picking a tank? (Fiora, Vayne, Darius, etc.)

What about an adc? (Rengar, Rammus, Shaco etc.)

Mage? (Kassadin, Galio, Morgana, etc.)

Bruiser or skirmisher then? (Teemo, Malzahar, etc.)

Naturally champions will always have good and bad matchups. But you don't need to enforce this idea by creating artificial counters.

I don't think Riot agrees with my design philosophy as for example they're pushing Kayle's time bomb agenda even further with the artificial scaling in her passive. You feel hopeless in lane but autowin after a certain mark if the enemy hasn't managed to forcefully close the game yet.

Thanks for reading. Please leave your opinions in the comments.

6 Comments

JakeParkbench3/22/2019, 7:22:58 PM2 votes

You did not state good examples of what is fun to play against but rather only what is unfun. Who would you consider to tick all the boxes and be fun to play against.

Monlyth3/22/2019, 9:10:59 PM1 votes

I think Riot knows that counterplay is important and I think they'd agree with most of what you've posted here; but I think another big priority for them is creating a unique gameplay experience for each champion, and trying to make each champion fun to play with, not just fun to play against.

A lot of people have fun pouncing on the enemy ADC from the shadows as Rengar and murdering their face. It's fun to pin down a pesky, mobile skirmisher and end their killstreak as Malzahar . It's fun to save your ally from certain death with a well-timed shield or nab a kill with a Dark Binding from Morgana . And yes, it's unfun to be on the other side of it, but I don't think you can replicate the unique joy of playing those characters without making them unfun to play against. Plus, you know, dying and losing are unfun in general.

I think it's a balancing act between "fun to play with" and "fun to play against", and there's no perfect solution. You can pursue the perfect champion design, but you can never truly attain it.