Understanding "Anti-Fun" and why it's not always bad for the game
Excerpt from "Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns":
Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun
Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from 'playing their game' or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the 'anti-fun' created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. Dark Binding is VERY favorable on this measurement, because opponents get clutch dodges just like you get clutch hits, so it might actually create fun on both sides, instead of fun on one and weak anti-fun on another. On the other hand, a strong mana burn is NOT desirable -- if you drain someone to 0 you feel kinda good, and they feel TERRIBLE -- so the anti-fun is exceeded by the fun. This is important because the goal of the game is for players to have fun, so designers should seek abilities that result in a net increase of fun in the game. Basic design theory, yes?
The takeaway here (and also the tl;dr) is that all aspects of the game in which you interact with your opponent will probably cause a degree of "anti-fun" for them. This only becomes a problem when the degree of "anti-fun" associated with an individual aspect is higher than the satisfaction the user of the skill gets.
You'll often see Riot rework champions or items when the benefits of using those champions/items effectively aren't all that noticeable until you take a look at a stat box that shows that your skill/item affected it. Sometimes, they'll even add something small, like the broken blue shield when Ryze hits an opponent with his Spell Flux (E) so both he and his opponent know that resistance was lowered because of use of the spell. The fact that Spell Flux lowers magic resist isn't always clear until you read the effect of the skill, so people who are unfamiliar with how it works wonder why they suddenly got shredded by the enemy Ryze without realizing that they were taking nearly uninhibited damage from him (unless they bought MR, of course).
Another more recent example of this is the soon-to-be reworked Abyssal Scepter. Its current iceboxed iteration causes its wielder to emit a pulse every few seconds that lowers the magic resist of enemies in the area. Both allies and opponents can see this taking place, giving it more of an ability to be satisfying for both sides. That Amumu with Abyssal Scepter will immediately see the effects of his purchased item if he uses it correctly, while his enemy knows that they're avoiding something hazardous by keeping Amumu out of their range -- much more satisfying than the current, rather visually-bland aura.
that's all i wanted to say about this. i see "anti-fun" thrown around a lot and very few people seem to understand it
you guys should read this post from zileas. it talks about the other anti-patterns in game design. the man is a genius and probably the best thing to happen to riot
