Critical Strike - Does Riot understand basic RPG Design?

DiamondLeonis··3 votes·651 views

Critical Strike, in most RPG and Moba type games, is usually bonus physical damage which is applied at RANDOM intervals during a fight off a normal hit or basic attack (Based off additional modifiers like "Critical Chance", which is never usually about 20 or 30% because of balance reasons), as a way to modify damage and make some attacks more powerful.

I totally do not understand Riot's objective with critical strike and Yasuo. Could they not see that having 100% Crit on EVERY attack from this guy by the mid game was going to be a horrific idea. It really does not matter how much they "reduce" the damage from crits because the rest of the numbers in his kit easily make up for the missing damage from his critical strike, not to mention other beneficial item effects like item 3087 etc.

The problem with this, is that Crit is supposed to be a RANDOM mechanic and is in EVERY RPG game I've ever seen, including Pokemon. Crit should NEVER be used as an integral part of a champions kit because crit is supposed to be a RANDOM damage enhancer. Critting constantly is just bad design on Riot's part.

No other game has done this because because EVERY OTHER GAME COMPANY IN EXISTENCE understands how Crit should NEVER be used as anything more then a random damage enhancer. I find it utterly bullshit from Riot that spells or magic damage is unable to Crit, Critical Strike should be available to all types of champions UNLESS Riot wishes to keep magic damage more consistent and reliable. (Which is why spells cannot crit in some games, but usually have some "equivalent" mechanic such as "spell chaining" and "elemental strengths" etc)

This is not a hard concept to understand Riot, this is a BASIC part of RPG Design. You do not give ANY characters in the game access to a 100% Crit Chance, regardless of how much you reduce their damage because its just so easily exploitable.

This is the same problem I have with champions like Vi. What the HELL is the POINT of TANKS. If champions like Vi can do damage, have great CC and have powerful tanking anyway. It makes an entire class of champion obsolete. One of the cardinal rules of game design is that you do not COMBINE Damage + Tankyiness in the way that Riot have done because it just contributes to a toxic game. I have always been of the opinion that "Fighters" like Vi ruin this game because she has CC, on a fighter.

I can understand it on Riven because her CC has a limited range and she only has one way to CC an enemy but Vi has a MASSIVE range on her ult which makes her easily more viable then Sejuani because she has MASSIVE DAMAGE + CC + TANK! I just think this is bad and lazy game design on the part of Riot, personally.

9 Comments

Maximum Morde1 votes

Rito didn't like random so they made it so everyone can get 100% if they want.

DiamondLeonis1 votes

But that is just terrible game design in my opinion. In EVERY other game that uses the same stats, Critical Strike is a SECONDARY stat, not a primary one and giving 100% to anybody is just toxic because it does not allow for a period of weakness in the damage for the enemy to counter-play with.

Ralanr1 votes

Riot knows crit is a problem, they just don't know what to replace with it.

DiamondLeonis1 votes

Why not just reduce Crit in general so that people can't get 100% crit, yes, even Yasuo (remove his double crit chance) and that would just solve the problem. Crit would still be powerful, just a lot less available.

Ralanr1 votes

Probably because most items that an ADC builds utilize crit.

This is probably something they should do in a preseason (the marksman update would have been best, but they didn't there for reasons) and since assassins are up next, I don't see them touching crit on a big level until at least season 9.

ZephyrDrake1 votes

because league is an RPG...

Pozezt1 votes

Actually, it was possible to crit on every hit in Gen 1 Pokemon. ;)

Jo0o1 votes

Allowing us to reach 100% crit lowers RNG's influence on the game, which is good. League is a highly competitive e-sport, and allowing fights to be decided by virtual dice rather than the skill of the players might threaten that.

Moesnd1 votes

Well this is not an rpg first off...

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