People can claim the boards wanted faster games all they want

Anatera·Jan 12, 2019·3 votes·2,650 views

but it's Riot's job to know when it's too much. It's called "balance." Just because Riot pivots from one side of the spectrum to another and doesn't have any idea what the "middle ground" is doesn't make it the fault of the players. It makes it the fault of Riot for assuming that an extreme answer must be the solution to everything. It is their job to know when to step back and make incremental changes and it's pretty fucking obvious they have no idea how.

Sorry, they're still incompetent, regardless of whether or not the player base wanted faster games.

(No, I wasn't one of them.)

9 Comments

Arctic DragonJan 12, 20191 votes

Laning phase is longer due to the plating system?

So, technically if laning phase is longer, then games wont end fast.

I don't understand what you're saying, are you complaining that the games are faster now?

AnateraJan 12, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arctic Dragon,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cHmRrV7A,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-01-12T08:03:18.302+0000)

Laning phase is longer due to the plating system?

So, technically if laning phase is longer, then games wont end fast.

I don't understand what you're saying, are you complaining that the games are faster now?

What I am saying is in the title.

DynikusJan 12, 20191 votes

I feel like game length is pretty decent right now actually. the average game is approximately 26-32 minutes depending on elo.

The Anivia OTPJan 12, 20191 votes

wow , much complex word , such english semantic problem not.

Understood will everything , doing i, question remains this

therefore english translate i will try

But it's Riot's job to know when it's too much: It's called "balancing".

If BALANCING was easy , every game in the world would be balanced, and only empty and boring games are truly balanced. btw, the game is trying to be the complete opposite of balancing. otherwise we would all have the same champion, they rather make sure a strategy doesn't become "THE ONLY SOLUTION EVER POSSIBLE" and quite often prefer to nerf the predominant strategy if it exist. a champion being strong is okay, a champion ALWAYS being strong isn't. however, you don't see that "ALWAYS" in 1,2,3 or even 1000 games, you need data from every game to know if a strategy is too predominant.

Just because Riot jump from one side of the spectrum to another and doesn't have any idea what the "middle ground" is doesn't make it players' >fault.

They kinda do that because people are pissed off every day, they still havent fixed irelia, still haven't fixed the damage, but in a few year , they probably will.

Try to find the right number int he first or second try without going too far, i can tell you , it's nearly impossible.

It makes it the Riot's fault for assuming that an extreme answer must be the solution to everything. It is their job to know when to step back and make incremental changes and it's pretty fucking obvious they have no idea how.

incremental ? that's not really the word you should choose, increment mean adding somehing. what should they add ? it's kinda the opposite if the revert changes. I believe now that the game is waaaay too stable compared to how it was few month earlier. however it remain stable on the instability it created (it's like it removed its leg by making huges changes very quickly then has stopped moving and expect too be balanced.) there is nothing to revert, the game is fast paced to avoid games lasting 3 hours.

Sorry, they're still incompetent, regardless of whether or not the player base wanted faster games.

incompetent ? in what extent ? sorry i don't get, have you ever made your own game ? have you ever added a similar amount of feature ? have you made those each of feature completely balanced and fair for every player ?

i can tell you , there are around 160 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 situations possibles (nbr of runes, champions ,finished items,the number is 1.6515614e+81) and making sure every of those are equally fair and balanced is straight out impossible. you can try out , but i highly doubt you can do that even if it wasn't done by a human , there are Too much possibilities that you just CAN'T BALANCE PERFECTLY a game.

XintiumJan 12, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Anivia OTP,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cHmRrV7A,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2019-01-12T08:06:53.800+0000)

i can tell you , there are around 160 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 situations possibles (nbr of runes, champions ,finished items,the number is 1.6515614e+81) and making sure every of those are equally fair and balanced is straight out impossible. you can try out , but i highly doubt you can do that even if it wasn't done by a human , there are Too much possibilities that you just CAN'T BALANCE PERFECTLY a game.

Only an observation on this.

The "making sure every of those are equally fair and balanced" is misleading. The goal is not to balance every possible combination (of champions, items, runes, ...). In fact, even supposing a low number of combinations (which could in theory be tackled), that still wouldn't be your goal, far from it. The vast majority of the combinations are useless options, such as building AD (respectively, AP) on a champion with no AD (resp., AP) scaling. The word "balance" cannot be applied there. You don't balance for AP Riven to have a 50% winrate, for example.

Only a very small minority of those combinations are_ relevant for balance_, i.e., you can talk about "balance" issues in those cases.

As a side note:

only empty and boring games are truly balanced

"Boring" is subjective, so I won't comment on that part, but I believe that this is stretching the words a bit too much. But this is going too much off-topic, so I will stop here.

The Anivia OTPJan 13, 20191 votes

when i said boring , i meant in in term of lack of interactivity, Rock paper scissors is perfectly balanced, but no one is willing to play rock paper scissors on stream for 24h guess why.

Also, that's what is killing people, we generally tends to think that to balance the game we just have to make sure basic combination are balanced and then ... inting sion ... oh no , i know, tank ekko ! Yasuo tank Maybe ? Kaisa AP ? Mundo ad ? Ap ? Shen attack speed ? Lethality ? AP ? i'm no sure, probably rengar AP...

sorry but "relevance" doesn't always applies. There are still hidden combo withing the game that are yet to be discovered, interaction we are not aware of.

The fact that EVERY champion has access to every ITEM and RUNE.

therefore, knowing at anytime that something might be op and we still don't know is a true problem. I'm still waiting for people to play braum-zeke + shyvana or mundo-knight's will, or shen ardent top.

It is true that among these combo some are trash, and will not always work. but also i pointed out how impossible it is to know which of those combination will work, or will be op.

and that's why it is humanly impossible to balance the game, because we cannot acknowledge every "relevant" combination,

maybe having a specific comp , with specific set with 5 smite will be 86% winrate but who plays that to know it ?

that's why we can never truly balance the game, the best riot can do , and will do is addressing frustrating situations, rather than OP ones.

XintiumJan 13, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Anivia OTP,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cHmRrV7A,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2019-01-13T13:35:57.253+0000)

[...]

A point-by-point reply is deserved.

If you, by "boring", actually meant "lack of interactivity", then (again) we are back to the same problem of subjectivity, but this time on a different word (i.e., "interactive"). For the sake of discussion, let us ignore this point. Starcraft 1 is often cited as one of the most balanced games ever (I agree with this) and I don't think you can honestly say that it "lacks interactivity". There are many more examples.
The basic combinations of the game are correlated to the very foundations of the game itself, so getting them right is the first step (you can't skip this!). Some players don't agree that this step has been fulfilled yet. The "core" balance problems (e.g., damage meta, tank meta, etc...) are exactly here.
Hidden combos are not as big as you make them sound to be. First of all, their very existence keeps the game interesting and open to experimentation. Secondly, if one of them suddenly turns out to be Over-Powered, Riot can simply fix it by looking at that specific interaction of elements at the next patch. We have already seen this in pro-play, where "gold funneling" strategies were killed by ad-hoc adjustments. In any case, these are quite limited and specific cases, which can be dealt with as soon as they appear.
The Game Developers decide what's relevant and what's not for balance. Ultimately, it's up to them. It is true that "relevance" doesn't always apply. This is a good thing: if relevance always applied, you would be forced to check every combination. Which brings us to...
How many combinations do we actually need to consider? Certainly, not all. The vast majority are trivially trash. In fact, we are very rarely outside the case that there are more than 2-3 build paths viable for a given champion (including off-meta builds), of all champions only a fraction are truly viable, and only a small minority of rune pages actually work. We are nowhere near the 1% of all possible combinations.

Finally, let us not forget that Riot has the power to easily remove large chunks of combinations with very easy changes. Don't you like AP Rengar anymore? Then, simply remove any AP scaling from Rengar. All of a sudden, many combinations disappear. The same thing can be said for AP Kai'Sa and all your other examples. The "off-meta" builds are the easiest things to fix, as they simply require number-tuning, leaving the main build paths untouched. Even in the very rare case that you are completely unable to solve them, you can simply scrap them altogether. Hardly a balance issue, in the long term.

The "fringe cases" (like Inting Sion) are solvable by their own specificity, almost by definition. They require a specific chain of interactions to take place and this is their unavoidable downfall. Guess why there was no "inting Fiora" strategy in toplane, only "inting Sion". Also "Pacifist Tryndamere" worked (for a short bit), but never "pacifist Riven". Proxy Singed can work, but you can't "Proxy Malphite" (nor any other champion). Summarizing, fringe cases exists, but they are few and very specific. Their downfall is their own specificity: Riot can kill these playstyles, if they ever become a problem, with easy.

All of the above is not what players usually refer to when talking about balance. They refer to the more fundamental issues (my point number 2), which are systematic and cannot be resolved merely by fixing some fringe cases or number-tuning some abilities of some champions. They are rooted to the core of the game itself and that's why it's much harder to fix those. It's not a problem of "too many combinations". It's a problem of (relatively) few basic combinations, which are so fundamental that changing anything is hard by itself and may have unforeseen consequences.

xDelightifyxJan 12, 20191 votes

If BALANCING was easy , every game in the world would be balanced, and only empty and boring games are truly balanced.

You obviously have never played wc3 or dota1.... sad.

btw, the game is trying to be the complete opposite of balancing.

Thats the main reason its going downhill.

otherwise we would all have the same champion,

no we just could play evry champ, because, if no champ is generally stronger than another, you would actually need to counterpick, instead of just logging in the champ, whose most op atm.

a champion being strong is okay, a champion ALWAYS being strong isn't.

then pls explain, why a yasuo still wasnt adressed, a zed still has to short cooldowns, and brusiers and assasines are stronger than every other role since an entire season. Or better why they still are strong.

They kinda do that because people are pissed off every day, they still havent fixed irelia, still haven't fixed the damage, but in a few year , they probably will.

It will be too late in a few years, because either the game changes to battle royal (->decimated Playerbase) or they will make the games even faster with more dmg, less tank stats, and less strategy (also resulting in a decimated playerbase).

Try to find the right number int he first or second try without going too far, i can tell you , it's nearly impossible.

No it isnt, or better sure it is if you have riots favourism for certain champs.

what should they add ? it's kinda the opposite if the revert changes.

Useful tankstats for example?

however it remain stable on the instability it created (it's like it removed its leg by making huges changes very quickly then has stopped moving and expect too be balanced.) there is nothing to revert, the game is fast paced to avoid games lasting 3 hours.

The game is not even close to be called "stabel". The entire lethality introduction has to be reverted. Mage items are a joke. Adc items are bad. There is much to revert.... If u dont want games that last around 30-50 mins then you probably shouldnt play mobas, but batlleroyals instead.

have you made those each of feature completely balanced and fair for every player ? i can tell you , there are around 160 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 situations possibles (nbr of runes, champions ,finished items,the number is 1.6515614e+81) and making sure every of those are equally fair and balanced is straight out impossible.

no it just requires a clear vision, no baisedness and a serious interest in the problems of your Community. But due to nothing of the abvoe stated does fit on riot, we wont have a balanced game.

even if it wasn't done by a human , there are Too much possibilities that you just CAN'T BALANCE PERFECTLY a game.

if it would be done by a Algorithm, running on a Computer with several peta flops it would be thing of 2 minutes to calculate "perfect balance". But ok.

XintiumJan 12, 20192 votes

{quoted}

if it would be done by a Algorithm, running on a Computer with several peta flops it would be thing of 2 minutes to calculate "perfect balance". But ok.

Not to dismiss your main point, just a brief note on this.

If, by "algorithm", you mean a brute-force approach (i.e., testing every single possible combination), then no, not even a super-computer with 200 petaflops - which actually exists, it's called Summit) - can help with that. It didn't "solve" Chess or Go, let alone LoL in 2 minutes.

And, as I stated above, you certainly don't want to try balancing all possible combinations. There is simply no point in trying to balance around AP Riven, Jungle Janna without Smite, or Orianna with an empty rune page and randomly chosen items.