Riots official stance on any forum thread regarding game balance
Courtesy of Spider Man
93 Comments
LaceUp2371 votesIt's funny because it's true.
SeductiveGrandpa6 votesSad? This is sad: 
FamousJ61 votesWell played.
's Cigar, they're very dead, nothing we can do for them now.
Rew7112 votesI love these. Who started these? I've been seeing these for months on FunnyPics.
Zenthon Prime2 votesThey've been around for years. They started on 4chan iirc.
insaiyanbacca2 votesits been around for a long long time i believe its origin was 4chan or maybe reddit
jQuery4 votesYeah 4chan. 6-7 years ago.
Laviosah30 votes
"You need not follow, but you must witness!" Basically, they don't need to do every change but they should at least read and respond to the more thought out or highly though ideas. For example if someone said "I feel like malphite does too much damage with his ult" and it was something alot of people responded to and upvoted for discussion, a rioter might want to chime in on it. On the other hand that doesn't mean it will result in a change, but the appreciation of a response would be so huge. I can't stand how one sided riot is on the forums, especially in bug reports (syndra having a megathread for almost a year and 3 months be the most upvoted thing with 0 replies) and I think this is a good opportunity to change their PR stance.
arbokfister2 votes
That's exactly how I feel
Hard Penetrator4 votesSaying that they don't care when they are doing balance patches every month or more (in s1 it was more like 2-3 weeks) for 5 years is simply stupid.
Most games got balance patches every 4-6 months tops. If you think that RIot don't care its your choice but imagine if they "cared" like a rest of game developers. Especially those with "free to play model" where 70% of content are item shop junks that only benefits ones that pay hard cash.
Yes there are champions left in the dust, yes, they had terrible choices here and there but every time they let me down, with time they fixed almost every thing that felt terrible.
I will admit that some of their decisions are bad and killing champion for a year or more is pretty disgusting but I can't imagine having perfectly balanced game with equally useful 126 champions. But yes go on, tell everybody how easy it is and how Riot is not doing anything at all...
MalzaharAnyLane1 votesIf they cared, CertainlyT wouldn't still be designing champions.
Your move, Penetrator.
MorbidlyObeese2 votes[{quoted}](name=Hard Penetrator,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lyphlXRk,comment-id=00040001,timestamp=2015-07-12T22:16:33.563+0000)
Saying that they don't care when they are doing balance patches every month or more (in s1 it was more like 2-3 weeks) for 5 years is simply stupid.
Most games got balance patches every 4-6 months tops. If you think that RIot don't care its your choice but imagine if they "cared" like a rest of game developers. Especially those with "free to play model" where 70% of content are item shop junks that only benefits ones that pay hard cash.
Yes there are champions left in the dust, yes, they had terrible choices here and there but every time they let me down, with time they fixed almost every thing that felt terrible.
I will admit that some of their decisions are bad and killing champion for a year or more is pretty disgusting but I can't imagine having perfectly balanced game with equally useful 126 champions. But yes go on, tell everybody how easy it is and how Riot is not doing anything at all...
They have to support the game because most of their money is made by promoting this game at its highest level.
FantasySniper8 votesThey actually do listen. If you payed attention, you'd notice.
Solaxo5 votesWhy do they reply to some worthless or funny threads but ignore serious/important ones is beyond me
FantasySniper6 votesThey ignore them because most of them are just bandwagon bashings - almost always about an assassin/assassin-esque champion.
When they actually provide in-depth and viable reasoning, they more often than not make a comment.
Who even says they have to make a comment? They could be taking this feedback without saying a word simply because they have no concrete response available - which is usually what happens because you see something related to it within the next few patches.
DrNova2 votesNot really true. I've seen plenty of well written posts about realistic topics of concern that get no attention. Just sayin
FantasySniper1 votesLike what?
I can recall few threads that could meet the standard of "well thought and well written", and they've for the most part have received a Red comment.
AMYS GRAVE3 voteshttp://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/summoners-rift/ARHV133L-can-we-please-have-a-sandbox-mode
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/HAlRpguw-5-bans-each-person-gets-a-ban
These are all important issues to the community, and have gone basically unaddressed. Good thing they changed the size of veigars ult missile though.
FantasySniper2 votes3/4 of these don't regard game-balance and are a different monster entirely to tackle.
The new player experience has been left mostly without response for over a year, and yes - I agree it should be addressed, too. Sandbox mode isn't a necessary feature, with the custom game servers already providing enough of a "free testing environment". A response would likely say as much (because I imagine Riot has reasons to not allocate work force towards such a project for the time-being), and only receive negative feedback, so it's understandable why they wouldn't even bother. Morello already addressed the "more bans" thing. Lyte made a response about the leaver prompt and basically said "it just lets you know it's bad to do" because it has an indiscriminatory sensor. How they're going to fix/improve the prompt message, they haven't said, but they seem to be content with it since it only notifies once per account and simply requests an acknowledgement from said account. That said, the prompt has minimal impact anyways, and it wouldn't mean much for it to be changed - especially for those that already got the message of "DC'ing is bad - don't do it or you'll be punished."
AMYS GRAVE1 votesyou want just gameplay and balance threads, ok that's fair considering the OP.
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/uooTUf9q-please-let-us-reorder-rune-pages
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/t6L7REmv-show-ignites-damage
also on picks/bans morello said
We're looking at Pick/Ban, but it's not part of this set of stuff (I also don't think increasing bans is good, but changing how we do picks and bans is).
8 months ago, and no changes, no follow up. making one post saying we're looking into it with no results and no follow up isn't acceptable communication with the community. If you say you're looking into something and don't give any follow up info then you haven't communicated anything. Hows it going? Where are the changes? Who is working on this? Is it still being worked on? etc....
I can do this all day with threads that have gone unanswered. You can argue that some of these might be in the process of being worked on, but that has been the case for (in some of these) years with little to no communication on how that's going. They do reply, but they are usually in places where the topic is a niche one that only affects one champion, instead of the game wide headaches that need to be addressed.
FantasySniper2 votesMost complaints about hitboxes are exclusive to some champions. It is just lazy on their part to ignore such cases without fixing clarity or least acknowledging it's a known bug (which they indirectly have with the skill-shot workability changes), but changing the champion for balance purposes takes a lot more effort. Refunds is more about business decisions, and although it's clear they haven't said as much, there is little reason to doubt they haven't thought about it as rewards for given achievements. Answering to such a case with anything but "yes" will only cause (harsh) negative feedback, so it's no surprise they're implying "no" by staying silent. Might as well treat the "new champs in ranked" like they do in Smite - where new characters are automatically banned from ranked during the patch they were added. Why they haven't addressed this can only be guessed at. The Death Recap has been addressed before, and it's pretty well known they want to do an expansive overhaul (which might be sooner than we think with the new HUD coming). Then there's the fact that they've been constantly fleshing out the current one. Numbers for summoner spells would be great, can't defend them on that. (Same with finisher indicators and spell activation rigs) Mobility has been slowing down for a while now. Most super-mobile champions have been heavily nerfed, CC-centric roles have made a comeback, and vision availability has never been better.
Another Rioter did comment on a suggestion to improve the banning phase. (4 months ago)
I'll tell you the same I told another: There are a few cases where it's obvious Riot has/had been biding their time, no doubt about it, but there is very little reason to believe they aren't paying attention or coming up with contingencies.
Game-wide issues are very difficult to fix. How long did we wait for them to rework Sion? Or Kassadin? We're still waiting on the rest... Some issues simply can't be solved with a short re-coding session, especially when a majority of Riot has to collaborate on literally every change.
AMYS GRAVE2 votesEdit: I did my best not to get sidetracked into any of these topics in depth, because this is a thread on communication after all....
\end edit
Most complaints about hitboxes are exclusive to some champions. It is just lazy on their part to ignore such cases without fixing clarity or least acknowledging it's a known bug (which they indirectly have with the skill-shot workability changes), but changing the champion for balance purposes takes a lot more effort.
Fixing hitboxes is a comparatively short order, they did Leona's zenith blade in one patch. Even if they run into trouble posting "working on making the hitbox match the visuals but ran into troubles" takes 30 seconds.
Refunds is more about business decisions, and although it's clear they haven't said as much, there is little reason to doubt they haven't thought about it as rewards for given achievements. Answering to such a case with anything but "yes" will only cause (harsh) negative feedback, so it's no surprise they're implying "no" by staying silent.
But they are remaining silent, which is the problem.
Might as well treat the "new champs in ranked" like they do in Smite - where new characters are automatically banned from ranked during the patch they were added. Why they haven't addressed this can only be guessed at.
The Death Recap has been addressed before, and it's pretty well known they want to do an expansive overhaul (which might be sooner than we think with the new HUD coming). Then there's the fact that they've been constantly fleshing out the current one.
Numbers for summoner spells would be great, can't defend them on that. (Same with finisher indicators and spell activation rigs)
Mobility has been slowing down for a while now. Most super-mobile champions have been heavily nerfed, CC-centric roles have made a comeback, and vision availability has never been better.
It has? the last 8 champions (or 17 out of the last 18) all have a hop, move speed steroid, or other extra mobility. Some of the mobile champion have been nerfed, but nerfing them until they are barely viable (leblanc for example) is hardly a solution, and all of this has been done with any communication to the community.
Also vision counters many things, i wouldn't say it counters mobility any more than many other things. but that doesn't really have as much to do with their communication....
Another Rioter did comment on a suggestion to improve the banning phase. (4 months ago)
two posts in 8 months is pretty bad, and this is a success story....
I'll tell you the same I told another: There are a few cases where it's obvious Riot has/had been biding their time, no doubt about it, but there is very little reason to believe they aren't paying attention or coming up with contingencies.
I'm sure they are watching, but they need to take a more active role in communicating what they are paying attention to. There is a lot of good in knowing that a particular thread has been seen by a red.
Game-wide issues are very difficult to fix. How long did we wait for them to rework Sion? Or Kassadin? We're still waiting on the rest... Some issues simply can't be solved with a short re-coding session, especially when a majority of Riot has to collaborate on literally every change.
Again, they can be difficult to fix, but a status update on how things are coming along is fast and easy. Even if the update is bad news it is better than nothing.
FantasySniper2 votesI would say vision has the greatest effect on mobility. Many counters to it are simply soft counters because you can avoid them with mobility, but vision isn't treated the same. Fizz or Udyr can get near you before you can blink at normal champion vision range, but when you can see them a mile away, it makes a world of difference.
They definitely can work on what they respond to, because they can be very interactive with some topics, but leave others be. Yet they should at least gesture at it to show they're watching, because often all it takes is that simple acknowledgement to make the player-base go from ravenous to patient.
Everyone appreciates and almost verociously desires intel on their latest developments and revelations (including me), but you have to cut them some slack when it comes to communication. It's not as simple as most make it out to be.
Zenthon Prime9 votesThey do, but they often ignore the things that really need to be addressed.
For example, the terrible reworks of 5.4? Complete silence. Kalista passive being BS? Complete silence. Devourer and the AP item changes are going to break half a dozen champions and everyone from Bronze to Diamond can see it? Complete silence.
FantasySniper2 votesThey gave Veigar and Zilean follow-up buffs in both patches following 5.4.
They've been steadily nerfing Kalista since release.
Remember how long it took for them to fix Feral Flare? Two patches after it was added. They're going to fix it, you just can't expect them to hot-fix everything. I also haven't seen any complaint about AP changes beyond the normal ones about Vladimir - and it's easy to assume he's being nerfed next patch.
Maximum Zilean7 votesWell considering 90% of "Balance sugestions" on these forums are just "OMG X IS OP NERF" threads. I don't blame them.
thinking man6 voteswhen you consider most of the forum is silver, they're a lot smarter than you're giving them credit for
Saianna26 votesSo what if someone is bronze/silver/gold or whatever?
I'm silver 2, yet i'm playing lol for 5+ years, got about 10k games played in total.
Division is nothing more than e-pen in forum.
"Hey guys, look at my e-pen it's whole platinum and 1 inch longer than gold muahaha"
Synx77 votesSo what if someone is bronze/silver/gold or whatever?
I'm silver 2, yet i'm playing lol for 5+ years, got about 10k games played in total.
Division is nothing more than e-pen in forum.
"Hey guys, look at my e-pen it's whole platinum and 1 inch longer than gold muahaha"
The community is blinded by one person's ranked stats. Rank doesn't matter when speaking of class balance. The amount of games, knowledge matters. I'm plat3. So what ? A bronze 4 that doesn't play ranked at all and he enjoys normal matches,with "x" games have as much knowledge about the game as everyone else. Screw ranked stats
crunchymunchys1 votesSo what if someone is bronze/silver/gold or whatever?
I'm silver 2, yet i'm playing lol for 5+ years, got about 10k games played in total.
Division is nothing more than e-pen in forum.
"Hey guys, look at my e-pen it's whole platinum and 1 inch longer than gold muahaha"
Well to be fair if you are still a silver player after having that many games and such, it would show you don't have much improvement in your mechanics or understanding of the game which to be fair is hard to do just by playing ranked. you need to know how to win before you can advance and ive been to plat and ill tell you that ive seen plenty of silvers play way better than them, yet are stuck in silver because they don't push objectives likes towers or never ward, or even kill hunt.
Saianna5 votesOr it shows that i don't play ranked?
I've never been interested in ranked. I wanted to keep playing LOL as a fun game. Ranked is full of toxic people. Actually i think i'd prefer dancing on fire while singing one of Biebers song, dressed in one of Nicki Minajs wtf dresses than even trying to play rankeds ever again. It is painful and tiresome experience
KONO RUBICK DA12 votesfunny because the balance team themselves are between bronze and gold (with few exceptions)
thinking man4 votesfunny because the balance team themselves are between bronze and gold (with few exceptions)
Most of the balance team doesn't really play this game and the ones that I've seen activity from recently have been plat+. Meddler himself is plat 4 and the guy who did the Olaf rework, Smashgizmo, was high diamond last season. Not only that, but Scarizard, another Rioter who handles a lot of things concerning reworks/balance is diamond 4. Riot does not choose incompetent people to do the jobs that they do and to believe that even the bronze/silver/gold balance team members are comparable to the average uneducated trash is absurd. Much of the feedback that goes into balance often comes from LCS players. They are generally beyond opinions and, as I stated at the beginning, generally do not play this game very much so they do not have personal in-game frustrations to base their balance upon.
Hard Penetrator3 votesYou don't have any idea what are you talking about. Do you think any good football player could be good coach?
Also why do you even judge Rioters by their private accounts that they use to have fun in a game they develop?
thinking man1 votes[{quoted}](name=Hard Penetrator,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lyphlXRk,comment-id=0003000100000000,timestamp=2015-07-12T22:28:49.019+0000)
You don't have any idea what are you talking about. Do you think any good football player could be good coach?
Also why do you even judge Rioters by their private accounts that they use to have fun in a game they develop?
You don't understand that this game is not football and the intellectual skills required to play it are different from the intellectual skills required to play football. Football also has a very different strategic atmosphere and an individual player will never be known for great strategy as they will for great footwork, or great passes, or great tackles, or something like that. Having a great coach just requires the ability to take orders while League does not have that element to anywhere near the level of necessity that football has it. Obviously some people will know much more about the game than others, but those people are few and far between, and not only are certain things different as you go up and then thus not easily known by low elos, there is also a strong correlation between game knowledge and your elo, as you cannot climb on just pure mechanics past a certain (low) point.
Hard Penetrator3 votesYou act like doing a pentakill at challanger lvl makes you good at balancing a champion. Those are two totally unrelated things. I am pretty sure that pro players often help Riot at testing new champions wayyyy before they are put on pbe, but I don't really think any of them actually got asked about joining to balance team.
Just being good at game doesn't mean you know how it work from technical point of view. For a player Ahri skillshot is just a ball that deals dmg and speed you up, for programmer in balance team it something way more complicated.
I have read dozens of topics from ppl that have played their favourite champion for years and they successfully identified its problems, weak and strong points while having high lvl debate with community and Riot employees. And no, they were not best players in the world, just some gold or plat most of the time.
I am not saying that game knowledge makes you worse and balancing a champion but I am sure Riot BT have both.
thinking man1 votes[{quoted}](name=Hard Penetrator,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lyphlXRk,comment-id=000300010000000000000000,timestamp=2015-07-13T11:14:32.247+0000)
You act like doing a pentakill at challanger lvl makes you good at balancing a champion. Those are two totally unrelated things. I am pretty sure that pro players often help Riot at testing new champions wayyyy before they are put on pbe, but I don't really think any of them actually got asked about joining to balance team.
Just being good at game doesn't mean you know how it work from technical point of view. For a player Ahri skillshot is just a ball that deals dmg and speed you up, for programmer in balance team it something way more complicated.
I have read dozens of topics from ppl that have played their favourite champion for years and they successfully identified its problems, weak and strong points while having high lvl debate with community and Riot employees. And no, they were not best players in the world, just some gold or plat most of the time.
I am not saying that game knowledge makes you worse and balancing a champion but I am sure Riot BT have both.
I don't think you really understand what you're saying. Of course one game doesn't make you anything special. It is when you have played many games to climb to the top that you are something. When you are at the top, you are generally devoted to the game, you generally know a lot about it since you can't climb without having game knowledge about player tendencies as well as champion/item mechanics, you cannot climb unless you are skilled. Not only can you not climb without knowledge, if you are at the top, you have a better idea of what is/isn't broken. Something impossible to deal with at the top, especially in this day and age of reverse power creep, will generally translate to difficult to deal with at the bottom as well. Your example of Ahri's skillshot is also terrible and very lazy, as you did not explain how that is different for somebody in the balance team, as well as the fact that being a programmer in the balance team just means you are inputting changes from human directions into code rather than being the mastermind behind the changes.
Basically I think you're missing the correlation between player feedback and Riot's balance team. Virtually every change has to come from feedback and the balance team has to be selective in the feedback. This means that a silver on the balance team doesn't actually really count as a silver because they are simply a means of expressing the greater desires of the community into the game rather than their own desires and thoughts. If a player is better than another player, their feedback will likely come from more experience. Just as the world's best surgeon probably has great knowledge of the human anatomy to go with an extremely steady hand, so too will a higher elo player have a greater game knowledge to go with their reflexes.
Hard Penetrator2 votesI will explain it to you so that you could understand.
Champion knowledge comes with certain time, there are players that know more about twitch mechanics than person that actually made him or reworked him. This person opinion is very valuable and often taken into account when some changes are planned.
What's more some observations and opinions are even more important coming from lower skill player because that's majority of player base. This game can't and shouldn't be balanced by and for 0.1% most skilled players for hundreds of reasons.
Ex: Some champions will not really work at challenger tier but if you would make them buff it they would make it broken for skilfull players at lower divisions.
RIot can't work with all champions at once. That is why some "megathreads" are partially ignored. RIot employees said that they often read and acknowledge meaningful input while most of the time its pretty hard to get because of ppl like YOU ("I don't think you really understand what you're saying.") that don't take into account that they aren't always right.
I am done here. Don't take time to respond, I don't care anymore about your opinion.
Nilok6 votesI've said it once l, I'll say it a hundred times, screw the LCS.
They have money on the line and will do anything to win depending on the player, from picking the most abusable champions, to outright cheating in some cases.
I can't blame then for the first one, their job is to play and win. However, the game should not be solely balanced around them, there are many people who have expertise to rival theirs, but simply choose not to play ranked.
Nilok6 votesThis whole thread is a tribute to how little people trust Riot to act on feedback.
pE4CbxDPQO5 votesIt's pretty obvious that they don't read. 100 or so threads a day without response can't be wrong. Or the dozen threads a day that have to do with champion select trolls that have fallen on deaf ears.
Ionian1 votesRiot's official idea of how balanced their solo q system is :D
s LessThanThree7 votesRiot's official idea of how balanced their solo q system is :D
How are you 8/35
AFK Push1 votesProlly the offensive masteries and ignite nasus lol
Dat Nasus cheese gg
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