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The Aspects of Balance Nobody talks about: Player Skill, Balance Cycle and Riot spoiling Players

ModCaptainMårvelous··15 votes·1,146 views

Often, the same balance complaints (however subjective) pop up: XYZ is OP, ABC is too high across the board. DEF is too weak. But rarely, if ever, does anyone seem to consider a handful of major factors which I want to go over. In doing so, I hope to bring to light additional factors and things that might be affecting the game that people disagree with...

#Player Skill

On the overall basis, player skill has risen. The closest quantifiable example I can find is in ranked division distribution: Early on in the game's lfiespan, a majority of players were bronze. I'd argue around 70% or more hovered in the bronze category. As of today, a majority of players (50% or so) are around the Silver division whereas bronze has shrunk from to around 20%. Now, there are other factors you can attribute to this such as new ranks in Master/Challenger or MMR changes. However, there are other places where this is visible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmJvKx1n8TE

A mere five years ago or so, Scarra lost his mind when he saw insec. By all accounts, this is a fairly standard lee play by now. If you can't do something like this, you're probably lower on the lee ranking chart. These plays aren't showy anymore. And, by today's standards, ScubaChris was incredibly slow in making this play. Now let's compare that to a play made by Levi, an up-and-coming jungler.

https://clips.twitch.tv/SpinelessKnottyPigeonDerp

Your neck would snap at the speed he was going. The point, however muted, I'm trying to make is that player skill has risen since the days of old. Asking to revert to older times will not solve problems, it will just cause many problems we didn't forsee to arise because players are good enough to see the cracks.

#Balance Cycle

Rather than complain about the speed of the balance cycle, I instead want to make a point that having the cycle -at all- is a huge gamechanger. For this, I can't use a League example. Instead, I want to bring up one of my old, favorite games: Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

For context, Marvel rarely got balance changes aside 1-2 patches and "Ultimate". During this time, one character rose to the top: Wesker. Wesker was fast, strong, could combo for days and had an amazing assist that gave you an OTG. He could play as a point character, a meter building assist and an anchor that swept the team. Hell, he got a buff where he got faster/stronger when you lost his glasses. This made him the only character in the game with a Level 4 x-factor. As you can imagine, EVERYONE and their mother picked Wesker.

Despite all of Wesker's strengths, a funny thing started to happen: Wesker slowly fell out of favor without buffs or nerfs. You see, with so many Wesker players, you KNEW you'd be fighting wesker. People were forced to get good against Wesker because Capcom wouldn't come in and fix things. Players had to adapt against Wesker or get stomped. Wesker was soon rotated out because almost everyone knew how to play against him, making him a liability on your team because it was a glowing sign of a weakpoint like Wesker's boss fight in Resident Evil.

League does not have this situation.

As a recent example, let's look at Hashinshin: Hashinshin himself says he has a very "basic" and old strategy from the days of Season 1/2. He wants to run at the top laner and smash their face in until he can snowball and beat them to a pulp. He wants a big, ugly slobberknocker brawl. As you often see with Hashinshin, people know very well how to exploit this. They camp his lane, they abuse his aggression and tilt him. It makes it easier to play against him despite however much mechanical skill he has.

Despite his lack of adaption/changes, his aim isn't to adapt to the new version of the game but rather say that the game is getting worse (objective as it may be) and want to revert to an old style. Hashinshin is the guy still picking Wesker and being upset that people know how to work around Wesker. (Before I continue: This isn't to smack on Hash. He's a competent player and some of his complaints about balance are valid. He's just a very clear example of what I aim at.) This leads us to the next point...

#Riot spoiling Players

A controversial statement considering the lay of the land, but bear with me and let me explain: In the past, Riot was always on the ground-level with the community and in many ways still is compared to some companies I've seen. To a fault even. See, when the community (as it used to be so very small) said jump, Riot often asked how high. You would see this with how Riot would address things with buffs or nerfs rather than let them sit. Players didn't have to consider adapting because they knew Riot, however loud or obnoxious they would be, was listening and nerfs could come. (In most situations anyways. Fuck you Lee Sin)

But this has poisoned Riot's relationship with the community. Players don't have the word "adapt" in their dictionary. Riot's constant capitulation and buff/nerf happy style of balance have made a playerbase of quick-to-holler players. This might come off as "So you're just saying it's all our fault huh, RIOT LOVER!?" and no, it's not. Riot is just as much to blame. In their rush to be popular, casual friendly and a communicative developer, they let their hand drop too fast. Riot is the parent who goes to McDonalds the moment Lil' Johnny even begins to scream.

Of course, Riot is not the only one guilty of this. You can see examples of this in Overwatch from Blizzard: While the patch cycles aren't as fast, in the span of almost two years, several heroes have gotten reworks and heavy changes to their kit. In a cast of around 25-30 characters, being forced to rework so quickly should be something of a red flag. Riot didn't really approach hardcore reworks until 2013 with Karma's relaunch. Four years after the initial launch in 2009 versus reworks mere months after release.

This developer quest of community engagement and being on the ground with players has led to a generation of players who only look for flaws. A problematic thing in the game isn't to be overcome but rather buffered out. And yes, there will be cases where the outlier is so severe that the character NEEDS to be taken care of (Zoe for example). These cases are just that though: Outliers. Things that occur once or twice a year depending on how complex the game is. Everyone rushes to find the "right" way to nerf or buff a character rather than finding a way to circumvent their strength/weakness and find success over or with that character.

#Conclusion

In all these regards, they're things that are never brought up because it's easy to cast blame solely on Riot. And in terms of correcting issues yeah, they can be blamed. However, they're not the genesis of every single problem in the game. In much the same way there's a parent-child relationship, so too are there faults in both Riot and community response. Riot's "failure to the community" is only seen as such recently because they've put their foot down far too late. In striving to design the game more in line with unseen metrics, they've come off as dismissive because they won't directly capitulate to what the community demands as they often did so long ago. At the end of the day, balance is a massive, messy tree with a thousand branches. We often yell too much at the gardener snipping at the tree's limbs while ignoring the termite problem deep beneath the soil.

#TL;DR

###Player skill has overall risen, which makes the disparity between good and bad players worse. Riot's patch cycle has caused players to entrust more in buffs/nerfs than in adapting. Riot's past capitulation and speed at which they've buffed/nerfed outliers has led to a community that expects more balance adjustments than learning. Riot, and the playerbase, have caused many of the balance problems today and community divides.

22 Comments

Teridax6810 votes

Not my main criticism, but:

{quoted}

Early on in the game's lfiespan, a majority of players were bronze. I'd argue around 70% or more hovered in the bronze category. As of today, a majority of players (50% or so) are around the Silver division whereas bronze has shrunk from to around 20%.

Is factually untrue, and fundamentally misunderstands how divisions work. Ranked divisions aren't based on some arbitrary, absolute benchmark that determines how good players are, they're based on how good players are relative to each other. Bronze, Gold, Diamond are just another term to designate which percentile of the total population you're in, which is also why the cutoff point has been fixed at Gold, which represents the 50th percentile of all Ranked players. I agree that players have gotten better over time, but a change in Ranked division distribution comes from Riot tweaking the cutoff points, not from everyone collectively leveling up.

My main criticism, however, lies with this:

{quoted}

This developer quest of community engagement and being on the ground with players has led to a generation of players who only look for flaws. A problematic thing in the game isn't to be overcome but rather buffered out. And yes, there will be cases where the outlier is so severe that the character NEEDS to be taken care of (Zoe for example). These cases are just that though: Outliers. Things that occur once or twice a year depending on how complex the game is. Everyone rushes to find the "right" way to nerf or buff a character rather than finding a way to circumvent their strength/weakness and find success over or with that character.

I would like to agree with this, and in many respects I do think there is a fair contingent of players who will prefer to blame someone else before analyzing how they could've played better, but I also feel this line of argumentation still relies on the elitist notion that if a player has a problem, then that problem is automatically their fault if they can't deal with it. As mentioned above, one problem with League is that it has a high skill floor, but on top of that the game is notorious for poorly communicating its learning curve. The tutorial still tells new players to build Thornmail on Ashe, but on top of that it makes no effort to explain the dynamics of last-hitting, the importance of warding, or any sort of strategic gameplay on a larger scale. The game effectively does not equip players to adapt, because frequently it's difficult to figure out by oneself what went wrong without being directly informed of a certain mechanic first.

Moreover, the two-week patch cycle means that even if players do try to adapt, they're not really given the time or opportunity. If a champion feels weak or strong, Riot will try to balance them, irrespective of what the playerbase says, and because two weeks is too little time to do a proper analysis, the game ends up in this constant state of flux where champions end up getting bent out of shape, and develop new problems as their older issues get addressed. This is not something the players are responsible for. Moreover, Riot has now repeatedly taken the time to explain that whichever communities are giving feedback on the internet are, in fact, a small minority, and that they prefer to rely on statistics to determine their balancing decisions. It effectively does not matter how "spoiled" we are, Riot's development process simply doesn't allow for long-term adaptation on out part, even for those who'd want to.

On top of this, I feel this whole "spoiled" angle is fairly short-sighted, and ignores the fact that community interaction with Riot was actually really positive back when they communicated more frequently. For sure, not everyone was constructive, but there was a healthy exchange of ideas where Riot directly incorporated feedback into the game, and this made the game better, or at least more popular to its fans. This wasn't players telling Riot to jump, this was Riot and its players working together, with as few degrees of separation as possible, to create a better game together. If this is what is considered "spoiling" the playerbase by industry standards, then the industry's mentality is completely backwards, and needs to stick its head out of its ass and remind itself why games are loved in the first place, as well as what makes the reputation of a developer or publisher. Incorporating feedback from players isn't spoiling them, it's doing one's job as a game developer, and if feedback is being incorporated improperly, then the burden of responsibility lies with the developer to improve their communication, not with the players to stop giving feedback. Every videogame forum has a negative skew with its fair share of knee-jerk complainers, so it really is up to the developers to figure out how to process that, rather than for us to feel like inconsistent communication resulting from it is justified.

{quoted}

In all these regards, they're things that are never brought up because it's easy to cast blame solely on Riot. And in terms of correcting issues yeah, they can be blamed. However, they're not the genesis of every single problem in the game. In much the same way there's a parent-child relationship, so too are there faults in both Riot and community response. Riot's "failure to the community" is only seen as such recently because they've put their foot down far too late. In striving to design the game more in line with unseen metrics, they've come off as dismissive because they won't directly capitulate to what the community demands as they often did so long ago. At the end of the day, balance is a massive, messy tree with a thousand branches. We often yell too much at the gardener snipping at the tree's limbs while ignoring the termite problem deep beneath the soil.

This too is rather condescending, and invents a narrative with Riot that is based on personal interpretation of events, rather than facts. We don't know why Riot has ceased to communicate like they did, but what we do know is that the devs post less frequently on their own forums, and that when they do, it's usually to talk at the players, rather than with them. We have dev thoughts and self-congratulatory Nexus posts, but we much more rarely have red replies to discussions, even ones that are reasonable and well-argumented. We've also seen a trend where Riot has become increasingly reliant on questionably interpreted statistics, rather than player feedback, including for matters of player perception, which cannot be answered directly with statistics. Additionally, when those statistics are produced, they're pulled from the ether, as players cannot access League's stats even if they wanted to. Hell, we don't even know for sure what League's player count is, in an industry where that number is now easily and publicly available as a standard for online games. Riot has effectively become less good at communicating with the playerbase than its counterparts in the industry, and I don't think we players can be blamed for that.

We have the right to know what balance terms Riot is operating on, particularly since they themselves had announced a willingness to create a shared language with us (e.g. terms like "counterplay" or "skill expression", class denominations, etc.), and if players are no longer able to understand what Riot is doing with their own game, that is not our fault. It's easy to blame the players for being stupid or spoiled, just as it feels rewarding to pat oneself on the back for supposedly rising above the rabble, but the fact of the matter is that players are neither of those, and in fact tend to want to contribute positively to the game they love, and are willing to put the work in to achieve that. It is up to the developers to decide how they want to channel that energy into improving their own game, and if their communications strategy leaves players frustrated and in the dark, that is the developer's problem to fix on their end.

Trollmanship1 votes

{quoted}

This too is rather condescending, and invents a narrative with Riot that is based on personal interpretation of events, rather than facts. We don't know why Riot has ceased to communicate like they did, but what we do know is that the devs post less frequently on their own forums, and that when they do, it's usually to talk at the players, rather than with them. We have dev thoughts and self-congratulatory Nexus posts, but we much more rarely have red replies to discussions, even ones that are reasonable and well-argumented. We've also seen a trend where Riot has become increasingly reliant on questionably interpreted statistics, rather than player feedback, including for matters of player perception, which cannot be answered directly with statistics. Additionally, when those statistics are produced, they're pulled from the ether, as players cannot access League's stats even if they wanted to. Hell, we don't even know for sure what League's player count is, in an industry where that number is now easily and publicly available as a standard for online games. Riot has effectively become less good at communicating with the playerbase than its counterparts in the industry, and I don't think we players can be blamed for that.

IMO it started shortly after tencent took over. Riot had to start optimizing for profit and nothing else matters except in its relation to said profit.

AirKingNeo4 votes

This too is rather condescending, and invents a narrative with Riot that is based on personal interpretation of events, rather than facts. We don't know why Riot has ceased to communicate like they did, but what we do know is that the devs post less frequently on their own forums, and that when they do, it's usually to talk at the players, rather than with them. We have dev thoughts and self-congratulatory Nexus posts, but we much more rarely have red replies to discussions, even ones that are reasonable and well-argumented. We've also seen a trend where Riot has become increasingly reliant on questionably interpreted statistics, rather than player feedback, including for matters of player perception, which cannot be answered directly with statistics. Additionally, when those statistics are produced, they're pulled from the ether, as players cannot access League's stats even if they wanted to. Hell, we don't even know for sure what League's player count is, in an industry where that number is now easily and publicly available as a standard for online games. Riot has effectively become less good at communicating with the playerbase than its counterparts in the industry, and I don't think we players can be blamed for that.

I completely agree with this statement. Riot's lack of actual communication is appalling. Worse, they're now trying to fight their community and tell their community, "No, you're wrong." Everyone knows that is a terrible idea.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Gonna be snipping because it's a massive post. Not gonna address the ranked thing because yeah, you're right. I just used it as a side point.

{quoted} My main criticism, however, lies with this:

[Patch Cycle, adaption, etc.]

Absolutely right. League's patch cycle doesn't really allow for adaption. It is, however, also a contributing factor as to why people focus more on buff/nerf than adapt. Case and point, people often talk down to Riot when these patches aren't changing much. The patch cycle is also part of the reason why League became popular in the first place. So let's consider this: What if Riot decided to go with massive but once-twice a year patches? The response I imagine is either:

A.) "Wow cool that gives time for the meta to stabilize!" B.) "Wow riot's getting super lazy."

Neither is right or wrong but I feel like players would be resistant to this change even if it was for the overall betterment of the game. Now, that said, you also bring up the spoiled argument. That's not really having a bearing in this situation. The point of "that" argument is going to be outlied further. Rather, I used the adaption/cycle to point out that players are more used to and accustomed to changes being made to the game itself rather than being given the time and effort to learn. Which leads to the next point:

[Industry, spoiling, etc.]

So the problem here is that, as much as we like to argue the whole "For a better game, together" angle, we're never all going to agree on what is the right way to do so. As my own personal anecdote, I'd often like Riot to balance more around the LCS/Master+ area of balance. I'm often told that this isn't right because the majority of players don't fall into that category. Is this wrong? Not entirely, but it does illustrate that players don't really care what would make a better game but rather what would make a better game FOR THEM. And yes, sometimes these things align and it's great! However, most of the time, the problems between divisions are too great to ignore.

"So why do you call it spoiling"? Because, years ago when I started playing games, dev interaction was nil. Along come companies like Jagex, Riot, Blizzard, etc. who now openly talk with players. That, while it's the standard today, was shocking back then. After all; players are and can be biased. Yet here they are, listening and working. As an addendum, I think your argument that "Dev self-congratulatory posts" and the like isn't fair. The Dev Posts themselves are not about "Yeah look how good we are" but rather "Here are changes we want to do, lemme know your thoughts or ask me questions". And a lot of the time, there is people sitting in there and discussing/talking with Riot. NA playerbase, blah blah, size, etc. I'm just gonna ignore that part because the size argument has been done to death.

Statistics and the like aren't as readily available as you think or greatly open to interpretation. In the industry, devs tend to guard their counts, revenue, surveys, etc. because that's money spent that becomes free info for your competitors. It's why we see "Over <x> million players" for things like Overwatch but no information on console/pc split, how many are actively playing, etc. It's all a fact of looking good to the camera and not showing your hand to other businesses. It's similar in journalism: Yes, you want to know the source, but you can't. Whether you trust the source or not is up to you.

But I wanna pull back: The reason I said that players also play a fault in this is because they objectively do. I know it's easy and often right to criticize Riot but so too does it fall to players. I often like to say "Every criticism I see about league right now was something players begged to have changed". Players who saw these problems and wanted to fix them. The other reason I bring players into this argument is that we're all too quick to pass blame to Riot. "I"m not bad. It's Riot that's the problem". Again, not always the case, but rarely do situations arise where people look at their own arguments, flaws, and introspection.

The goal of my post, however poorly or well I made it out, was not to cast blame or go "No no, all players are wrong". Rather, I wanted to shine some light and make some considerations for things that don't get talked about. I rarely see anyone talk about the skill gap between old and new league. I never see anyone account for the patch cycle and the quickness to rush to buff/nerf (on both Riot and player ends) rather than let something sit. The core idea is to expand the argument and get new discussion points in, rather than focus on who needs what. Getting to the why, rather than the "what".

Thanks for responding, either way. Your post was insightful and well worded. (Sorry I was late in responding. Was working today).

Teridax681 votes

{quoted}

So let's consider this: What if Riot decided to go with massive but once-twice a year patches? The response I imagine is either:

A.) "Wow cool that gives time for the meta to stabilize!" B.) "Wow riot's getting super lazy."

I don't think this discussion needs to be all that theoretical, since several Rioters have been saying for quite some time that they're preparing to move towards a patch model where they alternate between one big patch (where they exclusively focus on gameplay changes) and one small patch (where they focus purely on balancing the game). This effectively doubles the time where Riot changes the meta and adjusts outliers, and so far seems to have been met rather positively. I'm sure some players would accuse Riot of laziness, and there will always be players who think champions can be successfully reworked on the spot, but I also think a great deal many more players acknowledge that good work takes more time, and would rather wait a little longer to get better results, than to go back to roster update-style development that generates significant long-term problems.

{quoted}

So the problem here is that, as much as we like to argue the whole "For a better game, together" angle, we're never all going to agree on what is the right way to do so.

We may disagree on details, especially on a feedback space like the Boards, but in practice players are not actually that picky. We all have our pet issues, but most players do not actually voice discontent, so long as the game's good enough for them. Moreover, even if there may not always be a 100% consensus, there is nonetheless consensus to be had on quite a few issues: this is what caused Riot to finally get rid of Dynamic Queue, for example, or to change Mordekaiser's title. As a community, we really can work together, and have done so to great positive effect. Your very own title as Archivist would carry no value whatsoever if this weren't true, which is why I find your lack of faith in the community disturbing.

{quoted}

As my own personal anecdote, I'd often like Riot to balance more around the LCS/Master+ area of balance. I'm often told that this isn't right because the majority of players don't fall into that category. Is this wrong? Not entirely, but it does illustrate that players don't really care what would make a better game but rather what would make a better game FOR THEM.

No, in this case it simply means those players likely think your idea is terrible, and harmful to the game as a whole. Just to give my own perspective, I don't think balancing exclusively around Masters is a good idea either, not simply because this would make the game a worse experience for the near-totality of the playerbase, but also because I simply don't think balance needs to be exclusively done around one elo division. I agree that some players do reason selfishly without any long-term consideration, but inferring that the playerbase is spoiled just because some disagreed with one of your ideas isn't really the best track of reasoning.

{quoted}

"So why do you call it spoiling"? Because, years ago when I started playing games, dev interaction was nil. Along come companies like Jagex, Riot, Blizzard, etc. who now openly talk with players. That, while it's the standard today, was shocking back then. After all; players are and can be biased. Yet here they are, listening and working.

This fails to acknowledge the very history of video gaming: once the industry started to take off, it generated a bubble, which then brutally popped in the 80s, after a period where companies had distanced themselves so much from the consumer, and believed themselves so invincible to consumer feedback, that they felt they could release anything and have it sell well. Turns out, that's not how the market works, and after the release of E.T., video game companies got real humble real fast, if they survived at all. Video game companies don't take player feedback out of the goodness of their own hearts, they do so because that is the most sustainable way of selling games. Even now, look at how Bungie, who once could do no wrong, have become hated by a playerbase they have actively ignored, while companies like Digital Extremes or GGG gained immense industry cred precisely because they constantly incorporate feedback and interact with their players. Listening to players is a proven commercially viable strategy, and should be treated as such.

{quoted}

As an addendum, I think your argument that "Dev self-congratulatory posts" and the like isn't fair. The Dev Posts themselves are not about "Yeah look how good we are" but rather "Here are changes we want to do, lemme know your thoughts or ask me questions".

Very few Nexus blogs actually discuss the direction of League, and those that do have typically proven to be hilariously tone deaf: one of the most infamous examples is when Riot announced they would categorically never do replays or a practice tool, immediately before pulling a 180 in the face of overwhelming player feedback (and, surprise surprise, turns out the players were right). What we often have now are "Insights" posts, which spend less time detailing Riot's actual development process, and more time narrating brilliant flashes of thought from the development team, and how they've all worked so hard to deliver such an awesome creative endeavor by disregarding key features of champions that players had strongly resonated with. It's a lot of navel-gazing and patting oneself on the back, generating no truly thoughtful conversation (Riot comments typically only respond to briefly-phrased praise given there), and not really syncing with the sorts of conversations players want to have. It's even more grating when a posts lists Riot's design values, then is immediately followed by a release in which those values fly right out the window, such as when Riot expressed an apparently serious desire to cut down on kit overload, immediately before releasing Camille, and writing an Insights post on how adding more and more mechanics on a champion could only make them better (as it turns out, it doesn't).

{quoted}

Statistics and the like aren't as readily available as you think or greatly open to interpretation. In the industry, devs tend to guard their counts, revenue, surveys, etc. because that's money spent that becomes free info for your competitors.

Like I said, listing one's player count is the standard among online games, if only because it is seen as a show of honesty and goodwill towards investors and shareholders. Conversely, when a company refuses to disclose key statistics (including revenue, which Riot has not disclosed since 2015), that is typically seen as rather shady, and often not indicative of anything good. Even when games experience a drastic reduction in player count, e.g. World of Warcraft in the past few years, Destiny 2, any sort of online game in-between major content updates, companies still disclose these numbers, so Riot and League do stand out here, and not for the right reasons.

{quoted}

It's why we see "Over <x> million players" for things like Overwatch but no information on console/pc split, how many are actively playing, etc. It's all a fact of looking good to the camera and not showing your hand to other businesses.

For every Overwatch not releasing the details of their player split, we have games like Warframe, CS:GO, or even Destiny 2 that have publicly available, detailed logs of their distribution and daily player count, even when those games aren't doing well. The whole argument that showing numbers is bad for business is not only unfounded, but also disproven by the many companies and systems who disclose their player counts regularly and consistently.

Continuing in another post because this one's hitting the word limit, and I'm not done.

Teridax681 votes

{quoted}

But I wanna pull back: The reason I said that players also play a fault in this is because they objectively do. I know it's easy and often right to criticize Riot but so too does it fall to players. I often like to say "Every criticism I see about league right now was something players begged to have changed". Players who saw these problems and wanted to fix them. The other reason I bring players into this argument is that we're all too quick to pass blame to Riot. "I"m not bad. It's Riot that's the problem". Again, not always the case, but rarely do situations arise where people look at their own arguments, flaws, and introspection.

Citing specifics would help, because if your balancing anecdote is anything to go by, this might simply be another "observation" heavily colored by personal interpretation. On my end, while I do think some (or most) of the suggestions proposed on spaces like these are mediocre at best, I do think the sentiment behind them, i.e. the problem statement, is usually justified. Perhaps making Tristana a melee champion might not be the best idea, for example, but it would not be unjustified to state that she has some gameplay issues in the game's current state. Beyond that, I have also seen a lot of successes that have stemmed from players giving concerted feedback and having it translate to successful in-game implementation, as with the examples I have given in my previous reply here. I do not, however, think that the game's main current problems stem from trying to cater to player feedback, and in many cases I believe those problems have arisen precisely because they went against feedback.

{quoted}

The goal of my post, however poorly or well I made it out, was not to cast blame or go "No no, all players are wrong". Rather, I wanted to shine some light and make some considerations for things that don't get talked about. I rarely see anyone talk about the skill gap between old and new league. I never see anyone account for the patch cycle and the quickness to rush to buff/nerf (on both Riot and player ends) rather than let something sit. The core idea is to expand the argument and get new discussion points in, rather than focus on who needs what. Getting to the why, rather than the "what".

Teaching players to take others into consideration, or asking the community to take a step back and consider their feelings for League from a broader perspective, I think are valid topics of discussion, and could certainly lead to much more constructive exchanges among the community. However, I fail to see how calling players spoiled and selfish will dispose them towards that, nor do I believe this thread's OP dedicated any meaningful amount of time to talk about how players can learn to consider other people's viewpoints, particularly since the thread's own viewpoint comes across as almost solipsistic in its inability to acknowledge diversity of opinion, and the value therein. I agree that there are quite a few users on here, especially some of the more regular users, who could benefit from a reality check, and sometimes perhaps even a well-deserved verbal spanking, but if there is a way to improve quality of conversation on the Boards, this thread isn't it.

{quoted}

Thanks for responding, either way. Your post was insightful and well worded. (Sorry I was late in responding. Was working today).

Anytime, and my pleasure.

Lord Desert4 votes

Just a quick comment:

And yes, there will be cases where the outlier is so severe that the character NEEDS to be taken care of (Zoe for example). These cases are just that though: Outliers. Things that occur once or twice a year depending on how complex the game is.

Well IF it would only happen once or twice a year! Almost every 2nd month they create big outliers.... And the problem is not that they randomly pop up and surprise everyone! Look at AP Galio back then or Zoe or Duskblades Dmg output! These are not surprising results, someone with a bit of knowledge should be able to predict this.... And they have testers on a high elo level and years of experience. Those "slip ups" are completely of the charts. I can understand mistakes or rather unpredictable things, small changes with a bigger impact than expected, but not these big mess ups. Its only human to make mistakes and nobody is perfect, but I also have the right to get some roughly thought out changes from those professionals and not a fiesta every 3-4th patch....

But as a sidenode: Quiet often it feels like they "fix" something which should settle a bit longer before they touch it, and they often make changes which I cannot understand nor follow thru. Like messing with something that has nothing to do with the actual problem and tweaking that will not really fix it xD Its not like I'm perfect and know everything, but I decently often have a rather different, but also backed up, opinion on some of their changes.

To put everything together: It feels like those "misshaps" happen way more frequently and often are decently predictable. We are talking about professionals after all! Then some changes are done which arent making much sense, as they dont target the core problem directly, but some other random stuff. And thats why their "balancing" is often called pretty bad. Personally speaking it definetly feels worse than before, but calling it complete trash, thats to much in my book.

Sex Crazed Eve3 votes

If they told us to Git Gud, I'd probably respect them more. Casuls.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Hell, I'm trash at the game and I'd be fine with it too.

The one time I remember this happening was hyper-early in League's lifespan, back in the days of Morello: Everyone was crying for Annie nerfs and he came out and said "Yeah, we're not nerfing her, she's fine". There was a lot of complaining at first but, as time went on, people learned to adapt to Annie's short range and burst playstyle.

Sex Crazed Eve3 votes

{quoted}

Hell, I'm trash at the game and I'd be fine with it too.

The one time I remember this happening was hyper-early in League's lifespan, back in the days of Morello: Everyone was crying for Annie nerfs and he came out and said "Yeah, we're not nerfing her, she's fine". There was a lot of complaining at first but, as time went on, people learned to adapt to Annie's short range and burst playstyle.

Well, they did nerf her insane attack range.

HaIlMonitor1 votes

That was like in season 5 though, because her and Caitlynn had a super oppressive lane because those two could out range anyone else. He is referring to the start of the game.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Aye, that Attack range change didn't happen until frostfang's introduction or so, which let Annie get free gold at a massive range.

HaIlMonitor1 votes

Heck yeah. I used to actually play her ADC and would Rush TF. She basically was like Twisted fate but also had a built in thornmail. It was just something goofy I would do with friends that would tilt people. Fun days lol.

MrPhamtom1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sèx Crazed Eve,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ftdAPbHM,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-02-19T08:49:57.739+0000)

If they told us to Git Gud, I'd probably respect them more. Casuls.

They are

I mean as much as they can get away with

remember the current generation is spoiled crybaby millenials who expect to be given everything to them because their feelings demand it, and que their bullshit complaining about rights and etc.

If I was working at Riot, I would absolutely tell bad players to stop complaining and get better, but I can't because people would complain and I would lose my job.

Diamond2Kappa3 votes

Nice explanation of hashinshin, sadly riot buffs wesker in response to him tho hehe

AirKingNeo1 votes

Not really. Trying to win the laning phase is quite literally playing the game. If trying to win your lane isn't a viable option, the game is in seriously bad health.

Diamond2Kappa2 votes

Well theres trying to win your lane, and then theres "I take every trade and just want to bash peoples heads in at all stages of the game without counterpicking or ganking me being an option".

AirKingNeo2 votes

Riot spoiling Players A controversial statement considering the lay of the land, but bear with me and let me explain: In the past, Riot was always on the ground-level with the community and in many ways still is compared to some companies I've seen. To a fault even. See, when the community (as it used to be so very small) said jump, Riot often asked how high. You would see this with how Riot would address things with buffs or nerfs rather than let them sit. Players didn't have to consider adapting because they knew Riot, however loud or obnoxious they would be, was listening and nerfs could come. (In most situations anyways. Fuck you Lee Sin)

I'm sorry, but what? Riot, currently, doesn't nerf anything broken these days. Also, there isn't much to adapt to something broken, like Jayce perma zoning you with being able to 1 shot combo you level 4-5. Like do you just let him get the largest farm lead while you never get close to the wave?

Edge of Daybreak2 votes

Riot nerfs broken champions quite often. It's rare that you don't see multiple top tier champions nerfed every patch. Riot doesn't nerf everything people complain about because it's usually nowhere near as bad as a few people think it is. The only time some outliers go on for an extended period is because they can't find a way to nerf it without just outright putting them in the gutter which is never a good solution.

AirKingNeo1 votes

Really? Well Jayce and Maokai have been broken for 2 years straight. Tristana and Xayah for almost a year now.

Elkington1 votes

Riot also tends to make quite a few weird changes that no one asks for, as well as seemingly showing favoritism when it comes to balancing.

HouseOfSin1 votes

Competant is wrong. Please write it correctly, it disturbs me a bit. Yes, I'm weird.

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