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Lack of Counterplay

Dromeas·9/30/2014, 3:58:13 AM·1 votes·1,220 views

I think Riot has made a mistake with removing or severely changing champions with little counterplay. Specifically Talon's E Abilities with little counterplay is what defines good players from bad players. A good player with not allow an ability with little counterplay to affect them or will respond quick enough to change the situation.

Chess is a very balanced game, but most chess strategy revolves around moves with little counterplay: Forks, Pins, Forced Mates etc. A new player may know how to use the ability but will struggle from preventing those situations. On the other hand, a Grandmaster will have no problem finding forks, or pins or a forced mate, BUT they will also be able to predict and find a solution or avoid the situation altogether.

Balance is a difficult thing to do, But there is more to balancing than just leveling the playing field, and this is what Riot lacks the most. A lot of Riot's changes are usually to tone down a champions abilities, to scale down the level of "OP" that a champion or ability has. The problem with that is it make the game very stale, and repetitive. If Riot wants to make a game that is constantly exciting and continuously changing and molding, they need to embrace Perfect Imbalance.

MTG does a great job with it's "Jedi Curve" and I believe its what makes a game last forever. This is a good link if you're interested - http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3499686

I really love Riot's ambition with its recent champions (Yasuo, Gnar, Lucian, Aatrox, Viktor Rework, Sion Rework,) The problem is that these champions are good at TOO many things. So please, Riot stop making ranged,melee champions that have cc, mobilty, tankiness, and damage, and start making champions that have inherent weaknesses and crazy strengths (Attack ranges, cooldowns, Mana costs, no escapes). After all

When everyone's super, no one is - Syndrome

9 Comments

Knight SoIaire 9/30/2014, 5:03:21 AM1 votes

riot wont leave it like this they will make evetything skill relian so better player will always have the upper hand

NeoKira9/30/2014, 12:58:29 PM1 votes

First off, in chess, you make plays that have little counterplay. Your pieces themselves have a lot of counterplay because both you and your opponent have the exact same pieces. You may force your opponent into a position where he can no longer counterplay you, but from the start neither of you have the advantage.

Secondly, the syndrome quote was fun to see but it doesn't make sense here. Everyone in League being 'super' is actually desirable. People with little-no counterplay on abilities make certain champions unviable, sometimes to the point where they even feel unplayable in normals. Champions that are too powerful tend to simply be nerfed if that's all they need, but sometimes the differences is a matter of mechanics. We will mostlikely never have every champion in league being 'super' because their mechanics don't allow it. Because of the way they function, they'll always be too strong or too weak. You might get it close, but they'll ultimately be on one side or the other. These champions tend to be those that limit counterplay. This limits champion viability and changes things from a skill matchup to a champion pick. That's why certain champions can't simply be nerfed, and why weak/unviable champions can't always be buffed. They're mechanics don't allow it. That's why in this scenario, they didn't want to nerf talon's power, but they needed him to be weaker in order to enable counterplay. Hence, the removal of his silence.

Remember, the difference between an assassin and a burst mage is that an assassin has a really simple method of engaging his opponent along with mechanic or two that makes them very hard to kill themselves, but they tend to have less burst. A burst mage's job is to burst their opponent 100-0, but their method of engage tends to not be as good. However, to compensate they also tend to have a method of keeping their opponent unable to do much while they finish them off, hence why burst mages have stuns and assassins don't. If an assassin has a method of removing counterplay, they can essentially carry out their own job, and be a burst mage. It is especially toxic on AD assassins, who still have aa's to utilize even if their initial burst is down. This why Riot's taking away things like the silence, to remove counterplay.

SecretLore9/30/2014, 1:32:29 PM1 votes

The thing is,that perfect imbalance is no excuse for the lack of counterplay.

Assassins with silence are simply a combination that doesn't allow much counterplay,as the assassin is skilled in bursting you down,but the silence prevents you from actually doing anything against that(and how do you really want to avoid a point and click-spell?hugging the tower?well that won't help forever)

If the assassin has a silence then that means he has to suck at bursting you down,so that even when he gets into the action and silences you,the silence will run out before you are dead,so you can still safe yourself,which in turn would make him more of a squishy fighter,than an assassin.

Overall Riot is actually focusing on giving champs more important strenghts and weaknesses. I mean Gnar for example has good mobility in his miniform and massive tankiness and cc in his beast form. However both forms have also extreme weaknesses(mini is squishy and beast is really slow)and you can't even use these forms whenever you want. Enemies can see "oh you are about to transform,better keep my distance".

Soraka offers now massive healing,but leaves herself vulnerable. Lucian has now a lot of mobility,but rather low range Aatrox is an extreme leech-tank,but he needs to fill his blood well before he can do much and can be bursted down by multiple enemies rather fast. Sion will seemingly have massive cc and tankiness,but will be rather slow in the execution(his q needs to charge for cc,his ult needs to charge for better effect,his shield needs to charge before it can explode and he needs to kill things to get really tanky) Azir has an insane range with his soldiers and is good at zone-control,but he is limited to the number of soldiers he has and has trouble with people who can jum into his face.

It probably won't get to Dota2-level of strengths and weaknesses,but they are much more appearant than before