Why Riot Struggles With Balance (response to RiotCezium)

ofart·Aug 25, 2016·77 votes·20,548 views

{quoted}

Well viewers to us are important as well. I mean, who doesn't love turning on worlds and watching Faker dump on people (well besides me and probably a bunch of other people)?

Seriously though, there are a ton of people that do love watching the game and those viewers matter to us just as much as the people playing League. We try to do our absolute best for both worlds, but it's a tough line to walk. Usually it breaks down to regardless of what it is, it can't be above a certain power level in any of the places it might end up (low elo, high elo, competitive). If it's too strong at any of those, regardless of the power level elsewhere, it's probably going to have to be nerfed. And, usually, it's going to lead to a rework at some point because it's just not fun for those people that want to play something and can't because of how weak it is, with the goals of the rework making it more fun for everyone because we do want everyone to get a chance to love and enjoy every champion in League.

If those viewers matter to you just as much, it suggests that some balance deicisions aren't well-informed and likely to skew play in a way that isn't objective. For example, ignoring champions which aren't doing well but that Riot might consider less attractive to viewers (maybe Mundo - although he's hillarious when tanky) in favor of play making champions such as Malphite.

If you want to actually use the word "balance" rather than "rotating strength" or "controlling game direction", every champion has to be given equal attention and chances to succeed. Moreover, it should be based on PROPER play rather than compensating for mistakes in lower ELOs. This isn't disrespect to weaker players and I don't consider my own play worthy of influencing balance direction either. I think it's selfish and unhealthy for the game to balance around suboptimal play.

"Balancing" around the majority of the playerbase is antithetical to the very notion of balance and just makes those champions (such as Yi) unviable in high tier play where they are closer to optimal play. It's an invariably pointless and losing battle. Yes, it might suck for lower ELOs till they adapt but you can also just increase the number of bans. Riot's current philosophy of balance is simpyl dysfunctional and counterproductive because it isn't objective and tries to do everything for everyone (often failing both groups as a result). If you balance around only the highest tier of play, the game would be OBJECTIVELY balanced and what happens in lower ELOs isn't a result of actual issues with the champions. This might be an unpopular opinion but it's the only way to balance correctly. Although, it isn't incompatible with watering down mechanically heavy aspects of kits in order to make the difference less glaring.

126 Comments

RiotGhostcrawlerAug 25, 201648 votes

I don't sit on our balance team per se, but I do help to inform that team's strategies for how we think about League balance.

We focus the majority of our balance efforts at the high Plat / low Diamond level of play. This is because below that level, individual player learning can have a much larger effect on their success rate than the typically small stat adjustments we make to champions patch to patch. (If you're Silver, your win rate with Ashe will probably go up if you play 10 more games with her by a lot more than it will go down from the Enchanted Crystal Arrow nerf). On the other hand, if we balanced for the Challenger / pro level, we'd be affecting only a tiny percentage of overall players, and at some point it's possible the upper tiers and lower tiers of League would feel like different games, much more different than they appear today. We do however look for outliers at all tiers of play. If a champ is too dominant among pros, we look for something we can do that ideally won't make that champ virtually unplayable in Silver. Likewise, there is nearly always a tier of Bronze-stomping champions that are more easily dealt with (frequently by crowd control) at higher elos. We try to make changes to these champs as well, without making them even less likely to get used in high elo or pro. Around this time of year, we do pay extra attention to the pro scene, because we want to make sure the viewing experience for play offs and Worlds is as good as we can make it without excessively disrupting pro training.

Win rate is a major statistic that we consider when making balance adjustments, but keep in mind that we do look at win rates across many regions and across all tiers (even as I said if we focus on Plat / Diamond). We also consider experienced vs. new win rates. Some champions take literally hundreds of games before win rates really stabilize. That's not ideal, but it's something we do need to keep in mind until we can fix those problems.

A few of you mentioned play rates. That's not a stat we focus on a ton, because there are a lot of reasons that players choose certain champions. Power (e.g. win rate) is definitely one of them, but so are things like aesthetics, thematic resonance, someone's experience playing that champ, how compelling they find the various abilities, individual agency, ability to play multiple roles, chance of getting banned, etc. etc. If there is a champ that is dropping in play rate simply because of a nerf we made a patch or two ago, that's definitely a red flag and something we try to fix. But we don't do the opposite, where we try to increase play rate simply by increasing power. That nearly always ends with frustration where players feel forced to play a champion they don't like, or we expose counterplay or other gameplay problems that had kept the champion intentionally underpowered (ideally in the short term) in the first place.

We do gather and analyze a lot of data, but it's not the only factor in making decisions. We playtest the heck out of League internally. We read feedback, watch streams, watch pro games, draw on our own public games, and a variety of other factors to detect problems. It's never as simple as "I got beat by an Akali last night, so I'm going into the office to nerf her the next day."

The balance team is also under a ton of scrutiny internally as well as externally. If we felt that they weren't operating with a strategy, or if they were just buffing or nerfing pet champions with no long-term goal in mind, or if they didn't have explicit goals when they made particular changes, they'd be challenged on that pretty quickly.

Usually the problem from a player POV isn't whether or not Riot can detect a problem with a champion. Usually it's because we nerf or buff (from a particular player's point of view) the "wrong" champion, or we fail to take action on a balance problem, or the changes we make don't actually accomplish what we want. If we don't take action, there could be a few explanations. Maybe we think an upcoming change will fix the problem. Maybe the champ needs a larger update that doesn't fit in the current patch schedule. Maybe we just aren't sure yet how to fix a champion.

That latter issue gets into my next point, which is that we get balance changes right a lot, but we certainly get them wrong as well. If it's a relatively straight-forward change, like realizing that a 10% drop in an AP ratio will probably lead to a few percentage drop in winrate, our hit rate on those changes is pretty good. But it obviously gets a lot more complicated than that. Maybe the champ is overly dominant in specific situations that don't come up all the time. Maybe it's one of those high skill floor and even higher skill ceiling champions that I referenced before, and the challenge is to make them easier to play for lower tiers, but even harder to play for higher tiers.

Once we make a change, we do playtest it many times internally, but since we're on a two-week patch cadence, we aren't going to be able to playtest every change in isolation, and we'll rarely be able to get in more than a dozen or so games max on a particular change. Sometimes it's even less. That can't compare with the literal millions of games that will be played on a new patch when it goes live. Our strategy in that situation is just to be able to react when a change went too far or not far enough, which is a big reason why Riot decided to update League every two weeks in the first place.

So that answer ended up being a lot longer than intended, but I did want to share our thoughts on how we approach this space. I don't really want to get into the topic of our current thoughts on any particular champion or change, but if you have general philosophical questions on how we look at the world of game balance, I'd be happy to follow up on them.

Nameless VoiceAug 25, 201631 votes

As a "normal" player, I tend to find champion oppressiveness/frustration to be a far more important factor than actual (small) numerical balance problems. This isn't exactly the same thing as balance, but it's somewhat related (and the two often get confused.)

For example, if a champion has a kit which allows them to negate most of the plays that I can make with my champion (hard-counter / play negation), that generally feels much worse than if a champion is merely a bit too strong and tends to outperform others - so long as that overpowered champion still has areas of strengths and weakness that I can exploit.

I personally feel that Riot have been particularly bad at addressing these kind of gameplay problems. Which is understandable, because these are always design issues and much harder to solve than simple number-tuning problems, but I think that they have a bigger impact for most players than actual balance changes (unless the balance is really out of line). It feels bad when months and years pass and these kind of issues are rarely addressed or even acknowledged.

Typical examples are something like Kalista and Jinx. In season 5, Jinx was generally considered to be the strongest ADC and one of the strongest champions in the game, yet she was rarely complained about that much because she still had clear weaknesses and wasn't overly oppressive during the laning phase; whereas Kalista (with a kit full of heavy hard-counters and frustrating strengths) got thread after thread dedicated to her at the time, and people really only stopped hating her when she was nerfed hard enough that she isn't played much any more (she had to be nerfed into being under-tuned because it was the only way to balance her otherwise oppressive kit.)

I think that for normal / non-pro players, fixing design/kit problems is a much more important balance goal than perfecting the numeric balance.

TheorcheroAug 25, 20164 votes

{quoted}

I don't sit on our balance team per se, but I do help to inform that team's strategies for how we think about League balance.

snip

What about certain champions whose power are gated by bugs?

Old Vlad for example had a significant animation delay due to a bug after casting ultimate. Then you realized that after you fixed it, he became horribly, horribly broken so you just left it as is. Talon used to have a bug where his passive damage wasn't applying properly, you fixed the bug and saw a massive increase in his damage, so you nerfed it to compensate.

Is that what Yi's issue with Alpha Strike is still in the game? It's been in the game since the beginning of season 5 iirc, when you did the patience update to jungle monsters. You patched it resetting on Yi, but now he dies in Alpha all the time. It feels really counter intuitive. Is one of the reasons you've declined to fix it due to balance?

Also, speaking of Yi, what are you planning on doing with assassins being able to build bruiser/tank items yet still output huge amounts of damage? Yi is a huge case here, as is Yasuo, as Yi abuses titanic hydra super hard with his attack speed, and Yasuo abuses trinity steraks and his free armor pen to basically do as much damage as he did before while being super mobile and tanky.

I know you can't specifically mention champions, but are assassins building tank without significant trade off of concern to you?

NiyumiAug 25, 20164 votes

One thing you mentioned is bronze-stomp champions who are easily beaten in higher ELO by CC -- I have a question about that.

If a champion is so absurdly strong that the only way to beat them is to prevent them from doing anything at all (CC spam) -- how is that considered balanced? Shouldn't you be able to outplay a champion without just entirely disabling them?

HeeroTXAug 25, 20169 votes

{quoted}

One thing you mentioned is bronze-stomp champions who are easily beaten in higher ELO by CC -- I have a question about that.

Why should there even BE champs like this (I'm not saying they were DESIGNED to be this). If a champ is oppressive at low elo and "noob trap" at high elo, then why not rework that champion, since clearly they're bad (in differeing directions) at ALL elos just for different reasons.

SaixosAug 25, 20162 votes

Maybe it's one of those high skill floor and even higher skill ceiling champions that I referenced before, and the challenge is to make them easier to play for lower tiers, but even harder to play for higher tiers.

Just wanted to tackle this one point. Is there any reason that you lot can't simply make them easier to play for lower tiers, and then reduce their overall power to a manageable state?

An example that I could think of would be making Riven's Q cancelling automatic, and then balancing around her strength then (While keeping the rest of her cancels with E).

Come to think of it, you have done it before such as with Alistar's W->Q combo. I'm just wondering why this strategy isn't the default go-to unless there's some other problem. I think there are a lot of champions that could benefit from it.

SuperLuigiLXIVAug 25, 20167 votes

You've worked on Ryze over and over, including a complete rework.

In the amount of time you've semi-reworked Ryze, nerfed and buffed him, then reworked him again along with a visual update, you didn't touch Aatrox, who has been in just as bad a situation, probably a worse one if we're being honest, and could have used one of those rework spots.

Or Urgot.

Or Warwick.

Or Shen's could have actually been completed with the new voicework he needs so badly.

Would you care to explain why one champion is so much more important to you guys than others that you devote this kind of time to them, rather than letting them stew in mediocrity the way others have been forced to? Because from a player POV, all I see is you guys playing favorites with your champions.

EDIT: Also hi GC, I haven't complained at you since the "Druids need new forms" way back around the end of BC :P

PermabannedGarenAug 25, 20164 votes

{quoted}

I don't sit on our balance team per se, but I do help to inform that team's strategies for how we think about League balance.

We focus the majority of our balance efforts at the high Plat / low Diamond level of play. This is because below that level, individual player learning can have a much larger effect on their success rate than the typically small stat adjustments we make to champions patch to patch. (If you're Silver, your win rate with Ashe will probably go up if you play 10 more games with her by a lot more than it will go down from the Enchanted Crystal Arrow nerf). On the other hand, if we balanced for the Challenger / pro level, we'd be affecting only a tiny percentage of overall players, and at some point it's possible the upper tiers and lower tiers of League would feel like different games, much more different than they appear today. We do however look for outliers at all tiers of play. If a champ is too dominant among pros, we look for something we can do that ideally won't make that champ virtually unplayable in Silver. Likewise, there is nearly always a tier of Bronze-stomping champions that are more easily dealt with (frequently by crowd control) at higher elos. We try to make changes to these champs as well, without making them even less likely to get used in high elo or pro. Around this time of year, we do pay extra attention to the pro scene, because we want to make sure the viewing experience for play offs and Worlds is as good as we can make it without excessively disrupting pro training.

Win rate is a major statistic that we consider when making balance adjustments, but keep in mind that we do look at win rates across many regions and across all tiers (even as I said if we focus on Plat / Diamond). We also consider experienced vs. new win rates. Some champions take literally hundreds of games before win rates really stabilize. That's not ideal, but it's something we do need to keep in mind until we can fix those problems.

A few of you mentioned play rates. That's not a stat we focus on a ton, because there are a lot of reasons that players choose certain champions. Power (e.g. win rate) is definitely one of them, but so are things like aesthetics, thematic resonance, someone's experience playing that champ, how compelling they find the various abilities, individual agency, ability to play multiple roles, chance of getting banned, etc. etc. If there is a champ that is dropping in play rate simply because of a nerf we made a patch or two ago, that's definitely a red flag and something we try to fix. But we don't do the opposite, where we try to increase play rate simply by increasing power. That nearly always ends with frustration where players feel forced to play a champion they don't like, or we expose counterplay or other gameplay problems that had kept the champion intentionally underpowered (ideally in the short term) in the first place.

We do gather and analyze a lot of data, but it's not the only factor in making decisions. We playtest the heck out of League internally. We read feedback, watch streams, watch pro games, draw on our own public games, and a variety of other factors to detect problems. It's never as simple as "I got beat by an Akali last night, so I'm going into the office to nerf her the next day."

The balance team is also under a ton of scrutiny internally as well as externally. If we felt that they weren't operating with a strategy, or if they were just buffing or nerfing pet champions with no long-term goal in mind, or if they didn't have explicit goals when they made particular changes, they'd be challenged on that pretty quickly.

Usually the problem from a player POV isn't whether or not Riot can detect a problem with a champion. Usually it's because we nerf or buff (from a particular player's point of view) the "wrong" champion, or we fail to take action on a balance problem, or the changes we make don't actually accomplish what we want. If we don't take action, there could be a few explanations. Maybe we think an upcoming change will fix the problem. Maybe the champ needs a larger update that doesn't fit in the current patch schedule. Maybe we just aren't sure yet how to fix a champion.

That latter issue gets into my next point, which is that we get balance changes right a lot, but we certainly get them wrong as well. If it's a relatively straight-forward change, like realizing that a 10% drop in an AP ratio will probably lead to a few percentage drop in winrate, our hit rate on those changes is pretty good. But it obviously gets a lot more complicated than that. Maybe the champ is overly dominant in specific situations that don't come up all the time. Maybe it's one of those high skill floor and even higher skill ceiling champions that I referenced before, and the challenge is to make them easier to play for lower tiers, but even harder to play for higher tiers.

Once we make a change, we do playtest it many times internally, but since we're on a two-week patch cadence, we aren't going to be able to playtest every change in isolation, and we'll rarely be able to get in more than a dozen or so games max on a particular change. Sometimes it's even less. That can't compare with the literal millions of games that will be played on a new patch when it goes live. Our strategy in that situation is just to be able to react when a change went too far or not far enough, which is a big reason why Riot decided to update League every two weeks in the first place.

So that answer ended up being a lot longer than intended, but I did want to share our thoughts on how we approach this space. I don't really want to get into the topic of our current thoughts on any particular champion or change, but if you have general philosophical questions on how we look at the world of game balance, I'd be happy to follow up on them.

So when is Master Yi going to get a buff after he was heavily nerfed for his synergy with devourer and rageblade, only to have those items taken away from him immediately afterward? Especially since he is performing mediocre to poorly in every single elo?

GuardmanAug 25, 20162 votes

I think the big thing I can tell from these Shen's complaints is while a lot are complaining about balancing around Pro play, the bigger issue is you are hitting a weakness that is an essential part of the game and is a weakness that goes against his intended strengths.

Shen already has one of the worst times farming in the game. But for a champion that isn't designed as a support or jungler, but a solo laner, that is a pretty crippling weakness. The best I can compare it to is old Poppy. Old Poppy was never weak in the traditional sense, she just was so constrained by her lack of farming ability and early game that it made it difficult to ever reach her power spikes.

Shen is slightly better because he always has his ult. But when farming is a true weakness, instead of just slightly more difficult than average, the game can become a slog as it becomes hard to get enough gold to become more than an ult bot. In the same vein it makes one of his intended strengths, split-pushing, much harder to do effectively. Really the biggest problem is you are hitting him an area were he can ill afford to be hit and an area that indirectly nerfs not only a strength, but a defining characteristic.

LeonerdoAug 25, 20162 votes

Uh well, I have a question about the underlying philosophies behind a specific balance decision. So let me try and focus on the design goals without mentioning the champion.

Is it okay for a champion's core strength, his core identity, to be a strength that is only appreciated in pro play? For example, If a champ has a lot of tools for dominating macro-level play (one of the biggest things that separates pros from the rest of us), and those tools are key to defining the champion, then basically that champ is designed FOR pro-play, right? Moreover, either that champion will always be pick/ban in pro play (where he is in his element), or he will be balanced for pro play but perpetually underpowered in Solo/Dynamic Queue. Is that an acceptable state for a champion? Or would it be better if his strengths in pro play (which are the strengths that define his kit) were lessened so that everyone can enjoy the champion, at the cost of that champ feeling less unique?

To put it to the extreme in an attempt to make it more clear, would you rather have a champion that is only played by pros, or a champion that is bland, whose identity is weak and hardly feels different from other champions in the same class?

Having thought about it, I guess I'd rather have a pro-only champion that one whose core strength isn't even strong enough to be appreciable at my skill level. Either way, I'd still play someone else who's unique and strong at my level.

Bonus question: Do you think there are ways to satisfy both of these competing goals, if we look hard enough?

Aaand I have to get this off my chest; the champion is Shen.

BIue MonkAug 25, 20166 votes

Your philosophy seems good, why is the implementation so failed ?

CypherDoomAug 26, 20166 votes

"If a champ is too dominant among pros, we look for something we can do that ideally won't make that champ virtually unplayable in Silver."

Not at all a true statements. you guys nerfed Azir and Kalista to the point that they were unplayable in all levels of the ladder, champions straight up bad for soloQ or competitive, and thats only the beginning .

"Around this time of year, we do pay extra attention to the pro scene, because we want to make sure the viewing experience for play offs and Worlds is as good as we can make it without excessively disrupting pro training."

Another straight up lie. you guys completely fucked up the meta by deleting lane swaps from the game and took all the play off and worlds championship with yourselves, your CEO even said it on reddit. No team is happy by the changes and you guys know it. And most important you shouldn't look at worlds or play off to make any changes to the game at all anyways. For 2 months (or whatever duration this changes will have) you guys are completely ditching the work you were making for the ranked ladder balance and enjoyment of the game.

you guys are fucking up the soloQ experience for greed of profit and turning the game in something not even the pro's wanna play.

Get your shit together.

Photos of GhostsAug 26, 20162 votes

I think the laneswap measures were a good thing.

Dr PoroAug 26, 20162 votes

This is a wall of text but actually very well spoken of what's going on. Balance below plat is basically chasing shadows. Also the two week patch is incredibly nice. I wished that some of my other game companies (like blizard for hearthstone and other games) also had this ideal. A balance of a continuously dynamic status is way better than letting the people figure out a meta and hold on to it for half a year and then finally change it.

Riot's balance is really on point (except for jinx buff, wtf, atleast you didn't go through with the brand buff but also the zyra buff, idm because those are kind of my main champions in my off-roles.)

Xela SyabAug 26, 20162 votes

One of the issues I think you guys don't look at for balance is ability mechanics and attack animations. I really feel like those need more clarity and fixes before simple number nerfs. Alot of people played and mained Thresh and Leona because they had wonkey hitboxes that didn't have the best clarity of hit or miss. Kayle to this day doesn't have a physical ranged attack animation, it's literally a woosh on the target.

SergeantScuttlerAug 25, 201645 votes

This isn't going to be a popular opinion because people are myopic and don't want to take responsibility by adapting or making better decisions. They want the easy way out: "nerf the Yi freelo" etc. If they see a champion crush their ELO, they prefer to think that champion's OP rather than how to counter them. In any case, we're likely to get 10 bans next season.

Some people are actualy whining that League is balanced around pro play TOO MUCH, which is both wrong and ridiculous. It's not that Riot "cares more about pros". It's that pro play is way closer to the reality of the game's state than our Gold games. When someone says they want to balance for the majority, they're basically saying they don't know what balance means and want to be lied to. "I want you to lie to me and tell me that it's not our play but it's Yi or Heimerdinger who were OP. Thanks Riot! Now I don't have to think about dealing with the big bad OP Yi." In the same breath, they'll say "What's going on Riot?!!? Why is competitive so stale and why are they always picking the same 30 champions when league has over 120?!" The hypocrisy is delicious. I feel sorry for the BS Riot's balance team has to put up with.

MarshbouyAug 25, 20165 votes

summed up my thoughts completely. I love the "Stop balancing around competitive" and "why only 30 champs in LCS" contradiction, get's me every time.

Photos of GhostsAug 25, 20166 votes

It's not a contradiction, it's just laziness from Riot.

MarshbouyAug 25, 20161 votes

yes it is a contradiction. please tell me how to balance azir for both ranked and LCS? How about master yi? Kayle? Tryndamere? I'll wait.

ofartAug 25, 20165 votes

First, I just want to say that I appreciate GC's insights on balance and his willingness to engage with the community.

{quoted}

yes it is a contradiction. please tell me how to balance azir for both ranked and LCS? How about master yi? Kayle? Tryndamere? I'll wait.

You don't try to. Most games below Plat (and sometimes in Plat+ too :D) are such a clown-fiesta that even if some champions have signficantly higher winrates, it's not the deciding factor.

If a champion is truly crushing your ELO, a game that's balanced around optimal play still wouldn't stop you from climbing. You might have more coinflip situations where your team gets that champ versus the enemy team getting it but it would be a net neutral effect in the long run.

Best of all, as you get better, you'd still have the whole roster to look forward to and so would LCS players. The temporary frustration is a price I'm more than willing to play for real balance and I think people overstate the risks/issues.

Hinagiku33Aug 25, 201613 votes

The problem is that "pro play" and "high elo play" are two completely different games.

In the LCS players are coordinated, highly-practiced teams of 5 people with voice chat that play against other teams they know and have often practiced against.

In Diamond+ players are highly skilled individual players in non-coordinated teams without voice chat that play against other non-coordinated teams.

According to a recent Red post, in Season 7 Diamond+ will no longer be Dynamic Queue - it will go back to strictly solo/duo in Diamond and Master and solo only in Challenger.

Balancing for pro play is the problem because it requires balancing for voice chat and coordination that most of the player base doesn't have. See: Rek'Sai. She's really not that good. But LCS can make use of her vision, mobility, and knock-up so she's a mandatory pick/ban jungler. The only way she ever won't be is if she gets kneecapped by nerfs so hard that she becomes literally unplayable for the rest of us.

There are quite a few champs that stomp exclusively in coordinated play and suck in a solo/duo environment.

Either pro play needs a separate balance patch, different from the ones we play on, or some champs just need to be disabled the same way Magic the Gathering and other competitive games ban things that wind up being too overpowered and disruptive.

SohleksAug 25, 20164 votes

It's still yolo queue, but high diamond/master/challenger players are simply just good enough at the game and working with each other that those "professional level exclusive champs" and their traits definitely have value. There are still one tricks and cheesers but as you approach the very top of the ceiling the playstyle does kinda though not always becomes something like professional play. It really isn't too far off as people make it out to be.

I strive to play as well that. I know how to work within the meta. Yet I also have my own tricks. Many high elo players are super meta sheep and mostly only conform to the really obvious stuff. Whatever.

A lot of strong champions that get "gutted" for "the normal player" have traits that are hard to utilize OUTSIDE a solid team environment that you just don't see in low elo. Azir. Rek'Sai. Twisted Fate? They tend to not bother low elo players. There are champions that are the opposite that falter hard with and against a skilled team environment like Master Yi. Or Heimerdinger. Akali? Yeah, a rehearsed Twisted Fate could carry his own low elo games and a really experienced Master Yi or Heimerdinger can work their magic in high elo but it's not the norm

Why should we "protect" champions with difficult to use utilities effective in competitive play for low elo use when low elo will barely allow any assassin to be viable in high elo. And what about Garen or Heimerdinger. Why can't these champions be successful in high elo without massive massive decision making outplays. We should balance the game differently at all skills levels? Really? Why. Why not just learn to play the game. Or just accept not every champion is not for everyone. We've got 130 of 'em.

May I remind you, Rek'Sai is hella strong in high level solo queue play too. She's not popular for no reason.

WoonStruckAug 25, 20165 votes

Some people are actualy whining that League is balanced around pro play TOO MUCH

Honestly though, if Riot cared about pros, they wouldn't completely change the meta that professional players signed contracts into (were scouted specifically due to their strengths in that meta) before THE INTERNATIONAL TOURNEY, which is 9 FUCKING MONTHS AFTER THOSE CONTRACTS WERE ESSENTIALLY ETCHED IN STONE ACCORDING TO RIOT'S POLICIES.

FFS, Riot...do that in November up until February when the season starts. Getting rid of the lane swap meta this late is a TERRIBLE move for professional team managers and players alike. I don't disagree with getting rid of it for viewership's sake, but doing it this late in the season is absurd because certain players were signed because of how they performed in that meta.

GayFluffyUnicornAug 26, 20162 votes

Wow. really? Pros get signed because they are only good in a specific meta? That's not what i call pro tbh.

GayFluffyUnicornAug 25, 20168 votes

Pro play isn't anywhere close to the reality of the game's state. It's an entirely different universe. Now with DynBoost it might have changed when actual teamplay would occur in lower elo. But just last season soloQ and pro play were two different universes. Which you can tell by pick and bans of higher elo and compare that to pro play. So there must be some balancing for both sides, pro and pleb play. But patches entirely dedictated to pro play, buffing and nerfing champs which could fuck over soloQ? Don't think that is a good idea.

xXMrPeanutXxAug 25, 20162 votes

This is exactly it, I've said it a million times. Unfortunately. You're dealing with the League community here, and they are particularly smart. They rather whine at whatever beats them than fix actual issues. The whining will be never ending until they get what they want, and since it's the majority of them.

RiotGhostcrawlerAug 25, 201617 votes

Why should there even BE champs like this (I'm not saying they were DESIGNED to be this). If a champ is oppressive at low elo and "noob trap" at high elo, then why not rework that champion, since clearly they're bad (in differeing directions) at ALL elos just for different reasons.

I'm not fond of these champions overall (in terms of it being a good design). When someone suggests making more easily accessible champions for low elo, I try to suggest we make an easy to learn, hard to master champion who still can offer a major test of player skill, but can do so in ways besides tricky-to-execute mechanics.

We definitely don't want to leave new or Bronze players with only a few viable champions so we try to be careful when we do an update to them that won't bump the skill floor too high. We were sensitive to this with the Garen update for instance. I wish we had been able to get him a little more viable in higher tiers. We were more successful with Darius in that regard.

The main reason I don't like "good in Bronze only" champs, is I feel like it breaks a contract with the player. Maybe you really love a particular champion. Maybe you even spent real money on him or her. It then sucks if you get better at the game and slowly realize that you have to abandon your main and pick say Yasuo or Azir to be competitive.

SkiasAug 26, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I'm not fond of these champions overall (in terms of it being a good design). When someone suggests making more easily accessible champions for low elo, I try to suggest we make an easy to learn, hard to master champion who still can offer a major test of player skill, but can do so in ways besides tricky-to-execute mechanics.

We definitely don't want to leave new or Bronze players with only a few viable champions so we try to be careful when we do an update to them that won't bump the skill floor too high. We were sensitive to this with the Garen update for instance. I wish we had been able to get him a little more viable in higher tiers. We were more successful with Darius in that regard.

The main reason I don't like "good in Bronze only" champs, is I feel like it breaks a contract with the player. Maybe you really love a particular champion. Maybe you even spent real money on him or her. It then sucks if you get better at the game and slowly realize that you have to abandon your main and pick say Yasuo or Azir to be competitive.

Do you feel that more basic champions like Garen will always live in a more broadly powerful champion like Darius' shadow? With stronger trades, a stickier kit, armor pen and more accessible true damage, it sometimes feels like new champions also just get the best steroids in their kits.

Now don't get me wrong, your work on some old champs like Taric is damn good. I used to frequently play Taric and now he's my undisputed main. (Although his early game could use some help).

How do you give an old champ like Garen better tools like free armor pen etc that Darius gets and not make him nuts because of his extremely low skill floor?

BloodyTomponAug 26, 20162 votes

I agree with your sentiment, but I think it's a little un-pragmatic. There is a truism that different things will be good at different levels. I'm not sure what you think, but I'm suspicious that in order to get 150 odd champs that scale in semi-linearly with skill from top to bottom (and not fall off a cliff along the way), you'd need to homogenise them. Give them all Lee Sin-ish kits.

Admittedly, I have more of an issue with low skill ceiling than high skill floor for the same reason, I'm just not convinced it's a completely solvable solution in the short-medium term.

RiotGhostcrawlerAug 25, 201610 votes

What is your guys' response when you go through with a change but then see a really high ELO or pro player talking about how they think it's too much of a buff or nerf? Do you take it as that change possibly being abused in that ELO, persay, when a top lane main says that someone like Malphite might be too good with all the adc buffs (just a random example)?

Player feedback is enormously important to our process. Maybe the players will suggest something we didn't think about, or expose a potential exploit that we never considered. Someone who really knows a champion might very well have more insight into those changes, and we pay attention, but good feedback can come from anyone.

Bouncemaster ZacAug 25, 20169 votes

"It's selfish to balance for the majority" ...but not selfish at all to balance for the elite, for the 1% who make up a couple hundred out of several million. A game with a playerbase this large should absolutely be balanced around the average player, not a small handful at the pinnacle. A higher ELO does not make the consumer more important or the time and money more valuable. "MVP" is not a literal term.

SirPurrrAug 25, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Get Blobbed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=o8AXMUVu,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2016-08-25T13:37:48.504+0000)

"It's selfish to balance for the majority" ...but not selfish at all to balance for the elite, for the 1% who make up a couple hundred out of several million. A game with a playerbase this large should absolutely be balanced around the average player, not a small handful at the pinnacle. A higher ELO does not make the consumer more important or the time and money more valuable. "MVP" is not a literal term.

The thing is that there is no such thing as balance for the majority. When you do that, you just create an unbalanced version of the game which only FEELS balanced for the majority of players. In reality, it would be quite off from true balance. The only reason it would feel balanced is because you'd be factoring in a ton of mistakes which are less likely to happen higher up. Thus, you create a version of the game that feels like shit when it's played properly but feels OK when played by mediocre players. It's a perversion of balance.

PermabannedGarenAug 25, 20166 votes

[{quoted}](name=Get Blobbed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=o8AXMUVu,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2016-08-25T13:37:48.504+0000)

"It's selfish to balance for the majority" ...but not selfish at all to balance for the elite, for the 1% who make up a couple hundred out of several million. A game with a playerbase this large should absolutely be balanced around the average player, not a small handful at the pinnacle. A higher ELO does not make the consumer more important or the time and money more valuable. "MVP" is not a literal term.

I'd rather the game not be balanced around stupid morons to be honest.

Tank MasochistAug 25, 20162 votes

This is where you make the distinction between competitive and casual play. The "average" player probably doesn't play much ranked and generally only plays to have fun or is semi competitive but not enough for them to proactively take steps to become better at the game. The boards typically one would expect are players whom are the more active and competitive side of the scale and as such one would expect are the people willing to be proactive with getting better at the game and ADAPTING to the optimal play styles normally determined via proffesional play (this is NOT required but still most common). This is the crossroads Riot comes to when they have the problem of balancing their game. Cater to the competitve scene, or the casual scene. I personally think that as a company and throughout the seasons its become clear that League is meant to be a competitve game and as such be developed around the competitive scene, yes it isn't the best business decision in writing but remember that the minority group of active ranked lvl 30s are presumably the ones that generate most profit to Riot.

WheatloafAug 25, 20168 votes

Yes, the majority of balance should be (and is, actually) for higher levels of play. But Riot still can't balance only for higher levels, because even if lower skill levels suck, they still exist and still want to play the game. Imagine, if Master Yi was balanced so that he was actually decent in competitive. He'd end up shitting royally on low elo for the next eternity. Which is why the quote you used talked about reworking some champions so that they could be balanced reasonably well for all levels of play.

RiotGhostcrawlerAug 25, 20168 votes

Answer me this: Why does Riot need to be a on a two week patch cadence. Could they just...slow down and get things right instead of bombarding us with failed reworks and dumb changes that no one likes?

There are pros and cons to the process of course. Overall, one of the original visions behind LoL was that the team would be responsive. I wasn't here at the time, but the guys who first made LoL were really frustrated when someone would find a cheesy strategy and it would take the developers months to get around to fixing it, if ever. Given how much many League players play League, even two weeks can feel like a long time to deal with frustrating bullshit. You are totally right though that the risk is that sometimes it takes several patches to get it right. In some cases a longer bake period might get it right. In others, it is just going to take so many games played by the community, meaning that it's the number of patches that is the driving force; increasing the time between patches just increases the time before something is finally fixed.

Dr PoroAug 26, 20162 votes

I totally agree with this point of view. Right now there's occasionally a big issue-champion (like sona a few patches ago) but it hasn't ever lasted as long as Kassadin (oh god how OP was he since his release until season 3 after a bunch of nerfs) or AP Yi or even AP Sion with the toxic one-sided plays (I% actually liked AP Yi he was so roflstomp at times but also created a minigame around him that is currently filled by katarina in a lesser degree). Champions now are really balanced, even when I hate certain champions like Yasuo, I wouldn't call them freelo or anything like Kassadin was in season 2 (seriously I picked him every time when he wasn't banned in season3 even after his first set of nerfs).

RiotGhostcrawlerAug 25, 20168 votes

Is it okay for a champion's core strength, his core identity, to be a strength that is only appreciated in pro play? For example, If a champ has a lot of tools for dominating macro-level play (one of the biggest things that separates pros from the rest of us), and those tools are key to defining the champion, then basically that champ is designed FOR pro-play, right?

This is a tricky one, because not only does pro play have higher mechanical skills among the players, but it also has more coordination. For example, the more extreme we make a glass-cannon Kog-like character, the greater the risk that champ will be popular in pro, and maybe only popular in pro, because you can't count on someone in solo queue really defending that squishy champ, especially in Bronze and Silver.

So I don't like the thought that any champ with really defined strengths and weaknesses means they risk becoming pro only, because making overly generic champions without well-defined strengths and weaknesses isn't great for the game either.

Mira Arya EntheAug 25, 20165 votes

{quoted}

If those viewers matter to you just as much, it suggests that some balance deicisions aren't well-informed and likely to skew play in a way that isn't objective. For example, ignoring champions which aren't doing well but that Riot might consider less attractive to viewers (maybe Mundo - although he's hillarious when tanky) in favor of play making champions such as Malphite.

If you want to actually use the word "balance" rather than "rotating strength" or "controlling game direction", every champion has to be given equal attention and chances to succeed. Moreover, it should be based on PROPER play rather than compensating for mistakes in lower ELOs. This isn't disrespect to weaker players and I don't consider my own play worthy of influencing balance direction either. I think it's selfish and unhealthy for the game to balance around suboptimal play.

"Balancing" around the majority of the playerbase is antithetical to the very notion of balance and just makes those champions (such as Yi) unviable in high tier play where they are closer to optimal play. It's an invariably pointless and losing battle. Yes, it might suck for lower ELOs till they adapt but you can also just increase the number of bans. Riot's current philosophy of balance is simpyl dysfunctional and counterproductive because it isn't objective and tries to do everything for everyone (often failing both groups as a result). If you balance around only the highest tier of play, the game would be OBJECTIVELY balanced and what happens in lower ELOs isn't a result of actual issues with the champions. This might be an unpopular opinion but it's the only way to balance correctly. Although, it isn't incompatible with watering down mechanically heavy aspects of kits in order to make the difference less glaring.

I'm sorry. I doubt Riot is going to sell 95% of their playerbase up the river and alienate them by making play miserable. Just so they can make pro play, which is not even their biggest source of income, slightly more diverse.

What is with these entitled brats who think that everyone needs to treat the game like a salaried job or get out?

AnidanAug 25, 20165 votes

Well, it works pretty well over in DotA. Even when I'm playing that game casually, like most people play League, I don't feel like it's some sort of salaried job. I feel like I'm playing a game that's built around high levels of play, which is good even if you're playing casually because it still gives you something to strive toward and grow into. It's also better for the competitive scene (which is a major advertising vehicle for both League and DotA2), so there's that.

Also, wouldn't it be more entitled to say that a competitive game should be balanced around lower levels of play because they're not skilled enough to deal with what champions could do at higher levels of play..?

KoKobotoAug 25, 20164 votes

Rotating strength is a stupid concept and game designers shouldn't use it.

Photos of GhostsAug 25, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Yes, it might suck for lower ELOs till they adapt till they adapt

We CAN'T adapt. If you balance for Master, you can't expect millions and millions of players, of customers, to become that skilled - to make of a GAME the engagement of their life - just because someone chose to give them the unbalanced version.

LankPantsAug 25, 201612 votes

We CAN'T adapt. If you balance for Master, you can't expect millions and millions of players, of customers, to become that skilled - to make of a GAME the engagement of their life - just because someone chose to give them the unbalanced version.

This is literally what DotA does. It doesn't make the game worse, it just means that casual and competitive play are casual and competitive respectively.

You don't get this weird, semicompetitive, semicasual state that League seems to have adopted at lower ranks.

If you are playing casually in DotA you are playing casually. If a hero is too strong it's not that important because you're mostly just playing for fun anyway.

If you are playing competitively in DotA you will fucking learn how to deal with those heroes. Your goal is to get better when playing competitively, so that means if you find a hero too strong you have a weakness, and your goal is to improve on that weakness.

I honestly think the combination of the game being balanced around low ranks and the introduction of DQ have destroyed this games ranked scene. People seem to have forgot that ranked is a place where you're meant to try to improve your play until you are able to rank up.

If you want to play in a balanced environment then you should understand champion weaknesses and how to exploit them. If you don't understand this you should be actively trying to learn it. If you are not then you are playing the game casually and not competitively regardless of whether you play ranked or normals. If you are playing the game casually then it should not be balanced around you.

THE RlVER KlNGAug 25, 20165 votes

Just wanted to drop in and say that by default DOTA heroes are like 3x more insane than the League roster, but are balanced because they each specialize in doing certain things and have clear strengths, weaknesses, and windows of power (or weakness). In League there are champions that are literally good at everything or can build whatever they want or immediately begin to shit on you just because they got their 2-3 item powerspike. DOTA is balanced because everyone is very strong in their own right while also having counterplay. League is not because there are some champions where the counterplay is to ban them or try extra hard to crush them early so they don't destroy everything lategame.

LankPantsAug 25, 20162 votes

Just wanted to drop in and say that by default DOTA heroes are like 3x more insane than the League roster

That's a pretty moot point. Replacing every pawn in chess with a knight would make the game far more insane, it's still going to be very close to a balanced game.

but are balanced because they each specialize in doing certain things and have clear strengths, weaknesses, and windows of power (or weakness).

Most champs in League are also specialised to some degree. It may not be as great as in DotA but there's certainly reasons why even fairly similar champs would be picked over each other at least for the most part, or at least there would be if those champions were at similar power levels.

There are reasons why you would pick Nami VS Sona VS Bard just based off of their kits. The problem is that one of these champs is kept as competitive garbage, one of them is sub-par and one of them is actually quite strong, so the correct call is just to pick Bard if you need a heal/utility/poke support.

In a scenario where these 3 champs are balanced with each other there is a reason to pick any of them over the others in certain situations.

Sona (should) bring the highest raw numbers, strongest heals and strongest poke but she's generally deficient in other utility.
Bard brings the utility and CC of the 3
Nami has the strongest on demand disengage with Wave-Bubble-Speedboost.

The problem right now is that Bard brings the highest damage, strongest utility, best CC, strongest disengage and has the lowest reliance on items while being the safest of the 3. The only thing he's beat on is healing, which Nami and Sona do edge him out on, but it's a small loss.

In League there are champions that are literally good at everything or can build whatever they want or immediately begin to shit on you just because they got their 2-3 item powerspike.

I'd agree that these champs are very problematic. They're the Lee Sin's, the Ekko's, the Rek'sai's and the Azir's who hold the entire meta in their stranglehold, often for years at a time. I'd argue that this strengthens my argument however, these are the champs who are balanced around competitive play because if they're not they run rampant.

DOTA is balanced because everyone is very strong in their own right while also having counterplay.

Tell me which champs in League lack counterplay and I will tell you their counterplay. I'll cede, there are a couple, but I can tell you from your next paragraph that they aren't the champions you are thinking of.

League is not because there are some champions where the counterplay is to ban them or try extra hard to crush them early so they don't destroy everything lategame.

Crushing a champ early often is counterplay. I main jungle so I have a fair idea on how to deal with these champions. Long story short if there's a Vayne on the enemy team you gank her, a lot. This is actually counterplay, you may not have access to it as a laner but it's still a way your team can exploit Vayne's weakness. Also if you communicate with your team they are generally going to try to help you.

Champs who lack sufficient counterplay tend towards being early game dominant champs who beat you before you even get a chance to play against them.

Also there are stronger late game hypercarries in DotA than in League, I'd actually say that since the Poppy rework League doesn't have a hypercarry. If you think lategame champs can get too strong and too hard to deal with you'd absolutely despise heroes like Faceless Void.

THE RlVER KlNGAug 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

That's a pretty moot point. Replacing every pawn in chess with a knight would make the game far more insane, it's still going to be very close to a balanced game.

I used to play chess a lot and I'll be the first to admit having 10 knights would be fucking awful lol.

Most champs in League are also specialised to some degree. It may not be as great as in DotA but there's certainly reasons why even fairly similar champs would be picked over each other at least for the most part, or at least there would be if those champions were at similar power levels.

You've probably played DOTA more than me actually, but when I compare the two it just feels like there are a ton of things Dota characters can do that would be impossible or broken to implement in League. They switch health bars and force longer respawns, 15 second silences, and have AoE 5-6 second stuns. The most insane things league has is single target suppressions, Bard, Illaoi ult, Taliyah walls, Devour, etc.

There are reasons why you would pick Nami VS Sona VS Bard just based off of their kits. The problem is that one of these champs is kept as competitive garbage, one of them is sub-par and one of them is actually quite strong, so the correct call is just to pick Bard if you need a heal/utility/poke support.

In a scenario where these 3 champs are balanced with each other there is a reason to pick any of them over the others in certain situations.

Sona (should) bring the highest raw numbers, strongest heals and strongest poke but she's generally deficient in other utility.

Bard brings the utility and CC of the 3

Nami has the strongest on demand disengage with Wave-Bubble-Speedboost.

The problem right now is that Bard brings the highest damage, strongest utility, best CC, strongest disengage and has the lowest reliance on items while being the safest of the 3. The only thing he's beat on is healing, which Nami and Sona do edge him out on, but it's a small loss.

Won't argue there.

I'd agree that these champs are very problematic. They're the Lee Sin's, the Ekko's, the Rek'sai's and the Azir's who hold the entire meta in their stranglehold, often for years at a time. I'd argue that this strengthens my argument however, these are the champs who are balanced around competitive play because if they're not they run rampant.

Assuming those champions haven't run rampant already, or are still allowed to exist in generalist states, mostly referring to Ekko here.

Tell me which champs in League lack counterplay and I will tell you their counterplay. I'll cede, there are a couple, but I can tell you from your next paragraph that they aren't the champions you are thinking of.

I mean, I don't want to get into some drawn out balance discussion, but there are a lot of champions at least with waaaaay less counterplay than others. Take the age-old assassin vs mage argument. Say you have like Vel'Koz or an Orianna or something vs a Zed. You have to work extra hard and play extra safe to shut him down, or even GET kills on him. Same goes for Fizz or LB or whatever. But ultimately no matter how hard you worked, they'll still roam better than you and pick up kills anyway, and they have guaranteed ways to get on you and kill you whilst you can barely land a combo without them jist hopping out. Not necessarily saying either of those chains are weak or strong, the matchups is just obnoxious.

Annie has instantaneous CC to deal with said hypermobile characters as a fallback pattern to prevent them from being overbearing (heh). Same goes for like Malz and Ryze and Liss. But in reality said targeted or instantaneous CC is ten times better against immobile carries because even if they do get out of it alive they have nowhere to go, as opposed to a mobile character dashing or blinking out. It's even worse because most mages have no way to opt out of CC like ADCs do without wasting a whole item slot on QSS, or cleanse, which cripples early kill and map pressure.

Those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Crushing a champ early often is counterplay. I main jungle so I have a fair idea on how to deal with these champions. Long story short if there's a Vayne on the enemy team you gank her, a lot. This is actually counterplay, you may not have access to it as a laner but it's still a way your team can exploit Vayne's weakness. Also if you communicate with your team they are generally going to try to help you.

I main Tahm so the example of Vayne applies doubly so to me. The problem with inevitable late game champions is that the concept of someone who shits on you regardless of how bad they did early is a flawed one. Jinx, Vayne, GP, whatever, shouldn't just get a free ticket once they get items. Oftentimes I find it doesn't matter if you crushed a hypercarry in the landing phase - they still have opportunities to farm, to hide behind teammates, etc., the same opportunities other champions have, just that their lategames are so ridiculously powerful that they will win should the game ever get past thirty minutes, or that you are punished for NOT aggressing on them. Vayne's landing phase isn't the best but she still has huge kill pressure, damage, and disengage, all things ADCS like. Same goes for Jinx or GP or even new Ryze, who still carries just as hard. I've always found that unfair and toxic design to create champions like that, but that's just my two cents.

Anyways, as for Vayne, the problem with her is that it's literally impossible to play against her as anyone who doesn't have multiple gapclosers or targeted, long range CC. Hell, even if you DO somehow get on top of her she can Condemn you away. A champ with as much mobility and raw damage as Vayne should not have in-hand disengage, this has led to the problems with champions like Azir or Quinn in the past. Vayne being able to both delete squishies with crits and Tumble while also completely denying tanks anything has always been a problem for me. Vayne top is probably one of the worst things to ever exist in LoL, especially as a melee, because you can neither farm nor ever agrees on her, unless your name is like Irelia or something. End rant I guess.

Champs who lack sufficient counterplay tend towards being early game dominant champs who beat you before you even get a chance to play against them.

Yep. I'd agree there.

Also there are stronger late game hypercarries in DotA than in League, I'd actually say that since the Poppy rework League doesn't have a hypercarry. If you think lategame champs can get too strong and too hard to deal with you'd absolutely despise heroes like Faceless Void.

You're definitely right, FV us a nighmare. But League still has its fair share of hypercarries. Vayne and Jinx, Kog and Jhin all still exist, as do Veigar and Cass and hypertanks like Sion. With the MYMU Vel got a lot of love and he scales waaaay better now, able to delete the whole team now instead of just squishies with that ult. Poppy was a loss but Ryze is still a lategame monster, and GP is too.

Mandang0Aug 25, 20163 votes

You're implying that balance for some players is more important than balance for others, which is rather unsupported by your post and honestly not even an argument I'd care to get into.

Ultimately, Riot's gonna have to decide between poor balance at high ELO or bad balance for the rest of us who don't play professional 5v5 play. I'd rather disservice the 0.0001% of players than the majority of us who aren't pros. I wonder what fraction of the playerbase even watches professional play... probably not much.

SirPurrrAug 25, 20164 votes

{quoted}

You're implying that balance for some players is more important than balance for others, which is rather unsupported by your post and honestly not even an argument I'd care to get into.

Ultimately, Riot's gonna have to decide between poor balance at high ELO or bad balance for the rest of us who don't play professional 5v5 play. I'd rather disservice the 0.0001% of players than the majority of us who aren't pros. I wonder what fraction of the playerbase even watches professional play... probably not much.

I wonder if you've even read the OP or this thread. You're rehashing a tired argument which has been refuted multiple times in multiple ways.

BTW: There isn't really "balance for some players". There is only one objective balance and you deal with the consequences. Otherwise you're coddling players and allowing glaring issues with the game because certain things aren't understood or applied at lower tiers.

We don't ask sports organizations to change the rules for novices or less skilled players so why should League balance around the lowest common denominator? What's next? Do you want the tennis court to be smaller so it's easier to get to the ball for us "non-pros" who are less athletic?

Mandang0Aug 25, 20164 votes

Comparing this game, which adjusts balance biweekly, to something like sports is a foolish errand. Don't try to brow beat me for a tired argument when yours is equally stale and more off-mark.

And, no crap there's only one balance. What I'm speaking to is the consequence of the balance, and how some of Riot's champs are designed in such a way that they WILL be terribly-balanced in one end of ranked play when they're balanced in another.

Lastly, no, my argument hasn't been "refuted" anywhere, and it's a fundamental problem in any game where you're trying to balance multiple champions/cards/etc that operate differently for one level of play than for another. That goes double for a game like league where not only is top-level play different in skill, but also in format (5v5 vs DQ). I question whether you know what the word "refuted" actually means.

RisenDarkKnightAug 25, 20162 votes

I disagree entirely. I think it makes much more sense to balance around the bottom 93% of the players rather than the top 7% (plat and above).

We shouldn't just ignore over 90% of the playerbase just because they aren't "playing optimally."

People deserve to play a balanced game rather than one where all champions are balanced only if you play them each 50 games and make it above the top 10% of players.