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[Game Design Talk] Strategic Mobility: How to balance it?

Wobly·10/30/2017, 5:55:30 PM·4 votes·394 views

Can strategic mobility be balanced between soloq and pro-play? How would you do it? Would love to hear some Rioters' opinions. Details below.

Strategic mobility: Not dashes or speed boosts, this is the kind of mobility that lets you teleport across the map. Think Shen, not Yasuo.

The problem? Champs with strategic mobility tend to be much better in pro-play than in soloq. Coordinated teams can use these abilities to pull off plays that soloq players, even at the top levels, just can't. Shen, Rek'sai, Ryze, Tahm Kench, Galio; they've all been major balance problems at times, spending months or years languishing with low win rates in soloq to prevent them from becoming pro-play monsters.

How do we fix this? So far Riot has tried:

Removing strategic mobility and replacing it with more damage (Rek&#039;sai).

Weakening specific uses of strategic mobility that require more team coordination (Shen)

Tweaking other problematic aspects of the champions and hoping for the best (Galio, Tahm Kench).

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TBD (Ryze)
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Interestingly, two of the older champs with strategic mobility, TF and Pantheon, don't have this problem. Maybe their dead simple QWE's balance this out?

Strategic mobility can be a compelling mechanic, but it often creates balance problems. So: how do we make it work?

3 Comments

Teridax6810/31/2017, 8:31:51 AM2 votes

Across all MOBAs, global or semi-global mobility, or any kind of global mechanic really, tends to have a large discrepancy in performance between solo queue and pro play, because it generally requires map awareness and team coordination to pull off to its fullest extent. To a degree, I think part of the problem comes from the fact that many of these kits tend to just have global mobility alongside pretty standard, non-global abilities, so there's implicitly more difficulty put on these champions, due to the fact that they have to manage more things at once. This is particularly the case on champions whose basic abilities are mechanically intense, such as Ryze and, to a lesser extent, Shen, as it forces players to be both mechanically and strategically excellent to succeed. Ashe is one of the champions who avoids this (though she has global CC/utility, rather than mobility), because she has several effects on her kit that require global attention, and is otherwise not mechanically intensive at all: effectively, an Ashe player can get more comfortable observing the minimap without having to focus too hard on the minutiae of her Q or W, and to some extent also has to worry a little less about orbwalking than other marksmen, due to her innate.

Because of this, I think champions with strategic mobility could benefit from having simpler, easier kits around that effect. They should still be interactive to their opponents, obviously, but they shouldn't have to demand a ton of moment-to-moment focus from the player, nor should they ask for mechanical or tactical excellence when they already ask to devote a lot of mental resources towards strategy. Going further, I think it might even help to counterbalance global effects by giving these champions mechanics that are more effective in solo queue than in pro play. Doing so could also help fine-tune their balance better across elos, since it would be easier to pull either lever if they're particular OP/UP on one end of the scale, than it is to just buff or nerf a champion around pro play and leave them in a problematic state everywhere else. Shen is a pretty salient example of this, as he's usually OP in pro play when he's just okay in solo queue, and feels terrible when he's competitively balanced.

Tortunga10/30/2017, 10:27:43 PM1 votes

Interestingly, two of the older champs with strategic mobility, TF and Pantheon, don't have this problem. Maybe their dead simple QWE's balance this out?

I think it's more that TF/Panth one can be cast on the ground and doesn't rely on teammembers to be effective. Shens/Galio can only be cast on teammembers,and Ryze one can teleport the whole team. Reksai one required a tunnel and was in pro-play mainly used to get back to the jungle faster, as almost everyone clear the tunnels close to their lane.

Even if your whole team sucks, TF/panth can still use their ults effectively. Shen/galio properly cannot as casting it a on a bad teammember just means you get punished by the mistakes of that team member. For example you cast your ult on the enemy adc that is for some reason on the frontline, just to land in the whole enemy team while your own team has abandoned the fight already.

Ryze ult can be a complete game changer, but in solo-q people just don't follow up with your plans. You can have a great plat to flank the enemy, but if nobody if your team joins you (or all of them do, while they shouldn't) you just get screwed by your teammates again.

Elkington VI10/30/2017, 11:15:21 PM1 votes

I wish they would tone down Tahm's dueling power. If he's going to be unkillable for most champs (while keeping his mobility and utility), he shouldn't also get to be one of the top duelists in the game.