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Champion difficulty should not be considered a "stat"

ScurvyNave··39 votes·3,295 views

I recently had a game where I was winning mid lane and the enemy Ahri called me out for beating her with an "easy to play/unskilled champion".

Now considering I was Xerath I didn't take this to heart but it had me wondering why does Riot give champions different difficulty levels. Yes some champions may take longer for people to learn but the sheer "difficulty" of each champion's kit/play-style should't be considered a factor when considering balance or counter-play.

For instance in a later game I was Xerath again but this time I was the one getting angry at the fed Fizz dominating my lane. I called him out for his press E for freelo skill and promptly went on tilt after he tower dived me twice in a row.

Now I definitely was the fool in this instance because I kept getting my stun baited out before he went in but the point I wish to make is that the matchup had nothing to do with champion difficulty rather our respective skill at the game/ our champion.

When Riot or someone claims a champion is difficult to play or learn that doesn't mean squat when it comes to balance. (Think: Yasuo, Lee Sin, Kalista, Fizz etc.)

Kalista might be tricky to play but that doesn't excuse her insane ability to kite everything in game with her overpowering mobility. Sure I can pick up Graves twice as fast as I can learn to play Kalista but that doesn't mean she is balanced by the skill gate that can be passed.

Balance and design champions with the mindset that everyone is of equal skill and that a more complex kit (which is often stronger) does not mean that the complexity will make it balanced against more "simple" champions.

So before we go calling a champion Unskilled or Press R to win let's just remember to ask ourselves whether its the enemy champion that requires no skill or are we ourselves not skilled enough to beat the player behind said champion.

48 Comments

Deep Terror Nami28 votes

It's just to help new players know what they're getting into when they pick a champion they haven't played or watched.

SecretAgentHulk1 votes

So much this. It let me know I may want to avoid Draven until I had Ashe or Varus learned. (By which point I had learned that ADC'ing is not for me.)

Also I'm fairly certain the skill ranks are just calculated based on winrate. Could be wrong though.

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

Pretty sure skill rates are calculated on the complexity of a champ's kit, and the difficulty of their playstyle. Going off of ADCs as the first commenter mentioned, the "Marksmen" with the highest difficulty rating are: Urgot, Vanye, & Draven at 8 and Kalista & Ezreal at 7

Urgot because of his low range, Vanye because of her short range and her kiting mechanics, Draven for his axe catching, Kalista for her passive and the oathsworn component, and Ezreal for his purely skill shot kit.

BallisticMouse1 votes

Zed & Leblanc are both set pretty high in difficulty. Both are fairly easy to play.

WhiteFireOCN5 votes

At their fullest potential? No

BallisticMouse1 votes

At their outright fullest, challenger tier potential? No.

What I said was LoL says their difficult to play, they are not.

trexmixG1 votes

LB is not easy at all.

Unless you are against a team of retards who don't know how to use cc and feed her.

Narasimha2 votes

You're the kind of guy who think Yi is easy to master, don't you?

BallisticMouse1 votes

To 'master'? No. To play successfully with ease? Yes.

If a Diamond+ level player told me I didn't have Master Yi mastered I would believe them but, and no offense to you, I don't think a Silver can talk about mastering champions in a sense.

I'm silver also.

Narasimha1 votes

See, the difference is, I'm Silver now, but I've also been Gold before. And I'll probably finish up this season better once I stop fucking around. Give it a month or two. Or is Gold not good enough for you either? But I digress. I've been around since S2. I've seen pretty much every champion at their best, and at their worst. I know the difference between picking up a champ, and actually taking the time to use them.

BallisticMouse1 votes

I've also been around since S2, I have had multiple level 30 accounts and watch pro players constantly.

If you're not personally a pro player then you shouldn't act like one but i'm sure I won't be the one to stop you from acting more knowledgeable than others.

Enjoy life buddy.

Narasimha2 votes

Skill at the game has NOTHING to do with knowledge about it. If you've been here for so long, then I'm genuinely surprised you don't even know a simple fact like that.

And I do enjoy life. Each and every day. When its not raining. And not Mondays. But other than that.

Civil Dawn1 votes

Yeah, I agree

Although it could use some tweaks...

Umbral Light3 votes

One of the few times I find a voice of reason in these boards.

Skia Asteri3 votes

The difficulty rating is how likely someone new to the champion is to win their first game with them.

Otherwise Evelynn would not be in the same difficulty rating as Rumble & Anivia & Cassiopeia & Yasuo .

Sightless664 votes

Actually, the difficulty rating is a measure of the difference between the average winrate on the first game as a champion as compared to later games on that champion (such as the fifth game). If there is a larger gap in winrates between the first game and later games, then they are harder to pick up, so they are rated as more difficult. These ratings are made from and are largely aimed at newer players. Eve has a high difficulty rating because it's very easy for new players to mess her up because you have to play differently than other heroes with her, and what you have to do to be effective isn't immediately obvious.

GloriousKaiser2 votes

It's only people who try to justify overloaded kits and mistake them for "complexity" and "difficulty" who say this.

Spacesuit Spiff2 votes

Idk why you instantly assume the purple bar on the profiles means that Riot balances around this.

Just gonna add that champs have a skillfloor, and a skillcap. All the 450 ip champs are low in both areas (except maybe Poppy, her skillcap is being able to somehow get fed). Champs like Riven, Cait, Leb, and Braum are low skillfloor because you can basically just mash your face on the keyboard and kinda sorta do what you're supposed to do, but there's a lot of nuance to using them to their full potential. Velkoz is high skillfloor because you have to learn to consistently land Q, but once you do that's basically it.

Basically, low skillfloor champs can get decent results even if you're just facerolling or ignoring some aspect of their kit (but you'd get better results just playing an actual faceroll champion like Annie or Mumu). High skillfloor champs need to be played fairly well before they get anything done.

insaiyanbacca1 votes

wow thanks i had a kinda sorta description of what those words meant but never really understood them now i can actually use those words without fear of sounding like and idiot

BluePolarizer1 votes

yi is extremely high skillcap, more than cait and riven by far. look at cowsep 1v5 tower diving pentas in Korean diamond 1.

Minrog1 votes

I don't think LeBlanc and Braum are low skill floor champions. Braum has 2 skillshots and 2 reactives that require positioning and reflexes to pull off. LeBlanc's chains and ultimate doubling effect are also quite difficult to faceroll with. If you're missing your skillshots or mistiming the usage of the other ones, you're doomed on these characters.

Compare that to Ryze/Annie/Garen and there is a huge difference in the skill requirements to make the character work.

tkmteam51582 votes

I'm assuming when Riot puts that skill level in as a statistic, they don't mean for it to persuade your purchases, or to increase rage when a fizz dumpsters you.

Take Zed for example. As by riot, zed is a very high skill capped champion.

Now compare Zed to Xerath. (This is not calling you out, i'm using your example as my own). Xerath and Zed are two TOTALLY DIFFERENT champions in their own respects. I can't sit on the back line and destroy squishy as Zed. In fact, my job is the opposite. As a Zed main, I understand the capability of your champion.. my job is to MAKE you purchase Hour Glass, and to make your life a living hell during any team fight.

Based on that. Lets look at Zed and Xerath as individuals. As i stated above, Xerath, Like it or not, is a skill shot throwing AP back Line. Im not going to sugar coat it for you. Zed on the other hand, has ability's that are make Zed, Zed. A gap closing, Make your ADC hate yourself, boil noodles in your mid laners tears, and leave before you before you land CC kind of Champion. You have many more opportunity to make plays because of his kit. That being zed (Bu dun Psh), zed is a high risk high reward, where xerath is a low risk champion given that you don't get caught.

I hope this help a little! Look at each champion as an individual. Learning how to skill shot is much different then managing 3 shadows!

Saruyan1 votes
  1. matchups definitely has to do with champion difficulty, not as much in learning, but in mastering.
  2. champions that have difficult kits are good because they allow for a champion to be a bit stronger if you were perfect vs one that is very binary. if you could play 2 champions at the highest level and one would rate a 9/10(or difficult) champion vs one that is a 2/10(not very difficult/binary) and deal the same damage/be as equally impactful, why would i ever bother with the other champion? people play champions like vayne because while she is difficult to play than other adcs, she can bring a larger impact to the game than other adc thanks to impressive dueling/kiting ability as well as good damage. meanwhile some people will play champions like caitlyn who are pretty basic in what they have to do, but while they wont do as much damage, they are easier overall meaning you can reach a the higher levels of mastery better.

yes a champion that is considered difficult to play or learn is giving better things, because you're going to have to take time to play them effectively.

ScurvyNave2 votes

{quoted}

  1. matchups definitely has to do with champion difficulty, not as much in learning, but in mastering.
  2. champions that have difficult kits are good because they allow for a champion to be a bit stronger if you were perfect vs one that is very binary. if you could play 2 champions at the highest level and one would rate a 9/10(or difficult) champion vs one that is a 2/10(not very difficult/binary) and deal the same damage/be as equally impactful, why would i ever bother with the other champion? people play champions like vayne because while she is difficult to play than other adcs, she can bring a larger impact to the game than other adc thanks to impressive dueling/kiting ability as well as good damage. meanwhile some people will play champions like caitlyn who are pretty basic in what they have to do, but while they wont do as much damage, they are easier overall meaning you can reach a the higher levels of mastery better.

yes a champion that is considered difficult to play or learn is giving better things, because you're going to have to take time to play them effectively.

Yes but you are going to get to a point where having more things than someone else tilts the match to far in your favour. There has to be a balance in what the champion brings to the table and what "you" the player bring to the match.

Let's say I've mastered Xerath to a significant level lets say 8/10 (I'll never be that good but lets just pretend) Now someone who's mastered a Yasuo to a point of 5/10 is facing me.

Should we be evenly matched? Should the fact that his champion has more potential than mine dictate that I should lose or is my more familiarity with the simpler Xerath going to give me the advantage?

While no one can answer this since it will be different each game lets look at the situation if we had both 10/10 mastery over our champions.

We are both equally skilled with different tools available yet his has more gadgets/functions It may be logical that his more complex set will do more than mine but should it be stronger when considering balance?

A chainsaw will work better than an axe but they aren't balanced. One is more complex and can do more yes and learning to use a chainsaw will take longer but if we are having a contest that is supposed to be of skill vs skill why should one person have access to all the power/ability of a chainsaw (Yasuo) when another has an axe (Xerath)

It just raises too many questions with game balancing!

Saruyan1 votes

theres too many things to consider in the matchup like that.

before you even consider matchup based on difficulty/mastery you have to do it based on pure kits.

how does the abilities in his kit make your kit harder to use? in this case heavy skillshots vs high mobility

then you would take into account mastery, not only of the champion but of the player, how well are you in the matchup against high mobility targets as a champion that uses a bunch of skillshots? how about specifically yasuo?

you ask if his champion has more potential than yours, but does it? your champion wins in range and range is the ultimate factor to safety, while he has to get up and in your face to kill you, you can just not get close enough to get killed, and have tools to help you escape if he does. but then you go back and look at all the other things and how they apply. if you were such a proficient xerath player, you've probably played against a ton of high mobility targets, and have learned to quickly pick up their dodging habits and adjust accordingly, which means youd win,

but his kit is simple, and his strategy against you is simple: get in range using high mobility and face you where your champion is weak: close range

if you are asking whether a kit should be stronger from a numbers standpoint, then again it depends, do you think a champions who kit is purely point and click based should be stronger than one who relies on skillshots primarily? logicaly it would be no, because it is easier to do their stuff.

as for kits becoming more overloaded, thats something completely different than the balance of difficult champions, but it does play into it, with so many things you can potentially do, theres more potential things for you to learn to be good at.

yasuo was good because his kitmay have had too much going on, but thats easy to combat with less number damage, instead of taking away his multiple pieces of his kit(which is what makes him a not binary champion, thus difficult to mastery)

overtuning is easy to undo, putting too much into a kit and saying it should probably lose that is just horrible for everyone around(like evelynns stun. it was HORRIBLE for eve players when they no longer had their primary ganking tool, and it sucked for riot because now they were in a shitty situation to attempt to appeal to the eve players who learned how to work with her stun, while still trying to make the game more balanced.)

ScurvyNave2 votes

overtuning is easy to undo, putting too much into a kit and saying it should probably lose that is just horrible for everyone around(like evelynns stun. it was HORRIBLE for eve players when they no longer had their primary ganking tool, and it sucked for riot because now they were in a shitty situation to attempt to appeal to the eve players who learned how to work with her stun, while still trying to make the game more balanced.)

Good point, I mostly made the post because I was sick of hearing people calling out how the enemy is using unskilled champions. I didn't anticipate such an in-depth discussion of balance.

I'm sick and tired of people saying "X"is balanced because they take lots of skill to use.

No they aren't because learning curve is not as important as sheer numbers and abilities.

My final say on the matter will be that you can't defend a champions power/kit purely based on its complexity or difficulty to learn.

Saruyan1 votes

of course not. numbers are just as important on difficult to master champions as the binary ones.

and people will always say your champ is easy if its popular.

they are just trying to make you angry.

Volt Cruelerz1 votes

The problem with high skill cap champions is that often times the usual player is nowhere near the high end, so you can either balance it around those that excel with it or those that are merely good. The former makes it all but unplayable for most people (see recent Azir nerfs). The latter causes issues with not stopping the high end.

ScurvyNave2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Volt Cruelerz,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dxPnXQfE,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-02-23T04:37:16.881+0000)

The problem with high skill cap champions is that often times the usual player is nowhere near the high end, so you can either balance it around those that excel with it or those that are merely good. The former makes it all but unplayable for most people (see recent Azir nerfs). The latter causes issues with not stopping the high end.

Yeah i guess its a choice of 2 evils. Do we change the game based on the less skilled majority or the few pros that exist? However other champions seem relatively well balanced in skill vs power such as Reworked Sion (IMO) or Orianna. They take some skill, and have good potential but also have weaknesses that can be exploited by equally skilled players.

I go by the rule of thumb that if the pros play it in the LCS its a strong pick at the least and generally overpowered.

BluePolarizer1 votes

Balance it for pros only. That's what DOTA does and DOTA has far greater diversity than league.

Volt Cruelerz1 votes

I agree it should be balanced for the pros, but the problem is then your forums get clouded with complaints from noobs. I say this as an ex-developer for a game with a sniper rifle that fell firmly in this category.

BluePolarizer4 votes

but why does DOTA not have this problem? the game is balanced for pros alone, noobs are told to get good, there's a counter for everything, whether it be in hero pick or in itemization. The game is balanced for pros but noobs are given the tools to play around them.

the problem is that Riot refuses to give us tools in the form of itemization. For example, a 2000 gold item with gold inefficient defensive stats (like a mana/CDR/MR item) that gives a 1 second snare and nothing else, for instance, would be a tool for immobile champs to catch up or lock down mobile targets, while doing little to tanks and bruisers and being bad for snowballers. That's how mobile heroes are countered in DOTA - with targetted stuns, snares or silences from items. ADCs wrecking your team with too much peel? Make an item that dodges ranged autoattacks for 1 second with bruiser stats for around 3000 gold. Now there's a reason to play fighter/bruiser ADCs (Tryndamere, Jax, Yi) instead of ranged ADCs, and put a different lane bot like AP/support bot, with support having reliable CC and AP having follow-up CC and waveclear. etc etc.

with more tools in the form of item hard counters, the game gets alot more dynamic.

Volt Cruelerz3 votes

I'd personally love that. I've previously posted about a new item family idea to counter assassins. The base item would reduce single-target abilities by 8% with the mage upgrade reducing them by 10% and the tank upgrade reducing both abilities and auto-attacks by 12%. Items that counter certain classes would be fantastic. We have Banshee's and QSS, but that's about it at this point in terms of hard-counter items. Curiously, those hit immobile mages the hardest and immobile mages aren't terribly common in the meta... Methinks this is not a coincidence.

BluePolarizer1 votes

good idea. i think that better itemization is a must for the game to evolve strategically.

however, immobile mages aren't exactly weak. Just a few month ago, Orianna, Ziggs and Xerath were dominating. The worst class in the game right now are tanks and bruisers with no gapcloser. Have you ever seen a Kalista kite a Darius? Pretty funny to watch a 0-10 Kalista permanently kite a 10-0 Darius right? Well, Kalista can also kite 700 MS Hecarims and Udyrs too.

Narasimha1 votes

Hec, I can get, but I don't know why people keep saying Udyr. Unless the Kalista has red buff, there is no way she can outkite a Bear 5 Udyr. He will always catch up to her.

BluePolarizer1 votes

BoRK OP, furor boots OP, and Kalista can kill Udyr in the span of BoRK movement steal.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

Balance it for pros only. That's what DOTA does and DOTA has far greater diversity than league.

The PUB experience is absolutely fucking awful tho. The majority of people who play League are not ever going to be pro and the majority don't play Ranked. If you balance everything for pro level in a game like League you alienate the majority of the playerbase.

Its the same type of problem we actually have in the American economy currently. Everything feels like its made for or around the top 1%, which ends up fucking over everyone else.

BluePolarizer1 votes

balancing for majority means yi, tryndamere, fiora, etc get nerfed thus useless for pros. lcs will only be 10 champs,

Volt Cruelerz1 votes

I went ahead and created a thread on the subject: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/LOXeNXAy-the-addition-of-more-counter-items

GuiltyGecko1 votes

Personally, I have the ingame difficulty stat hard to decipher. Even when I got started with LoL back in Season 2, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. What I do find more useful, is knowing if a champion is easy to learn and hard to master (or vice versa).

Taryn1 votes

I personally don't think any of the champions on the roster are difficult to play. Even the ones that are deemed "challenging" tend to also be overloaded, thus making it easier to be successful regardless of the 'skill' required (aka, Kalista, LeeSin,Thresh, etc etc..)

Mimy1 votes

Difficulty doesn't matter to me..

I feed as Teemo, but carry a game as Gnar, and went positive first timing Draven on the free rotation, but kept messing up trying to do a Kateraina ult. (Own kat, but don't play her often..)

Difficulty honestly.. doesn't matter.. I think it more or less depends on the player. Some people say orianna is hard, others say shes easy..

that or.. maybe im just weird..

Extreme Troller1 votes

difficulty stats is so dûmb. Even a 50iq could have predicted it would fail.

Size of the chmpion is a better stats than difficulty.

difficulty stats is like saying, this champion eat potatoes, this champ love spaghetti, this one is pizza, and this one is burritos. but potatoes is very cheap, you can get lot of them for 1$, so this champion is useless.

Civil Dawn1 votes

Ahri is probably easier than Xerath, especially with her new mobility buff...

They were clearly mad lol.

Meep Man1 votes

I think the Difficulty is more of the learning curve.

Teridax681 votes

Champion difficulty is a very broad term, and you can't really say the whole thing applies to balance. A champion can be difficult to play because their own mechanics are difficult to pick up or master: that doesn't factor balancing, but that difficulty does tend to lead to some greater personal achievement, as opposed to achievement versus other players (Riven is objectively more mechanically complex than Garen , but she gets to wall-hop whereas he just gets to run very fast for a little while). A champion can also be difficult to play because there are so many ways their opponent can outplay them, and that's a balancing factor: almost two years ago, Zed was causing problems because his shadows were way too fast, and didn't give his victims enough time to react. Instead of just nerfing him outright, he had the speed of his shadows reduced, which made it more difficult for him to poke and assassinate enemies in general. A lot of people in-game tend to use the term "no skill champ" as shorthand for a champion with no counterplay, but as you pointed out it's likely that they got outplayed and didn't see (or want to see) how they could have done things better. Champion difficulty isn't used as an excuse for low counterplay or unhealthy design, and if a champion happens to be challenging yet toxic that doesn't make them any less problematic.

FLY Slotmachiner1 votes

Since we have this topic up in discussion: Who do you think is the most difficult champion to learn and that is not shown through the stat? I personally think Maokai is a champion that requires more skill than the stat says.

Bob the bomber1 votes

I would have to agree!

To be frank I do not think it was that hard to learn Yasuo, Lee Sin, Kalista, or Fizz when compared to other champions. Their play styles were different, but they did not force me to learn a whole heck of a lot more than when I learned Urgot, Nami, Aatrox or Alistar.

I do think people need to forget mastery time in for balancing because for all the extra options these champions bring does not mean they should be the last to nerf, actually for that reason the opposite as there is so many more possibilities of the unknown that makes them unbalanced.

But I guess they think other wise.

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