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Riot's design team really shot themselves in the foot, but I have a solution for that

Espurr VI·12/26/2019, 7:42:30 PM·6 votes·1,856 views

When applying to work for Riot, they ask you a simple question. (Or at least last I checked)

"Which champion do you feel is unbalanced?"

At first my thoughts go to Yasuo, because he's fcking Yasuo. But that got me thinking about all the other extremely broken champions, like Pyke, Senna, Akali, Yuumi, Irelia, etc. Now, a lot of the champions might not be as strong as they once were, but they all have a common problem. Their kits are completely overloaded, making them near impossible to actually balance. And it would appear Riot has no intentions of fixing that.

So instead of nerfing champions damage, durability, or sustainability, I instead Riot implement a Game Bible. This would contain rules and regulations when designing champions or reworks. It would also strongly help in making champions much easier to balance. To gives an example of how this would work, here is the first rule for the "League of Legends Bible"

The Triangle of Balance

At each end of the triangle is a trait a champion can have: Damage, Durability, and Utility. When reworking or creating a champion, you can choose only 2 traits.

Damage is the most self explanatory. It details how much damage that champion is meant to dish out. A champion with this node is meant to be a damage dealer in some way, whether it be Assassin, Juggernaut, or ADC.

Durability is how much damage the champion would be able to sustain, heal, or prevent. A champion with this node can create large shields, heal good amounts, or is overall just REALLY tanky.

Utility is a bit of a complex area. In this node, a champion with Utility would have a single dash/blink, and some form of CC. (This doesn't apply to speed boosts though)

Combining these 2 traits creates the following classes:

Juggernaut (Damage + Durability) Darius Illaoi Assassin/ADC (Damage + Utility) Ahri Ekko Fizz Tank (Durability + Utility) Amumu Alistar Nautilus

With this knowledge in hand, we can start to notice that a bunch of champions right now that actually violate this rule, meaning that they have all 3 traits. Irelia Heal and Damage Red (Durability) On-hit Q, and her passive **(Damage) ** Q Dash resets, (Utility) Yasuo Shield and Windwall (Durability) Double Crit and 50% armor pen on crits (Damage) Endless E Dash, and Ulti teleport (Utility) Riven Shield on her E though to a lesser extent compared to the aforementioned champs (Durability) Runic Blade, also her execute and damage combos (Damage) and her 4 dashes x3 Q and E. (Utility) LeeSin Shield and Life steal, like Riven, lesser extent to this compared to the other champs (Durability) Execute on his Q, plus having high damage scaling with R (Damage) and 2 dashes on his Q and W, once of which is a warp hop (Utility)

There are some other champions that violate this rule as well to a much lesser extent, but these are the most notable examples.

All of these champions I've mentioned are seen as completely overloaded, or overpowered. This is because they violate that basic principle of balance in that they are designing to precisely designed to be good at everything. Assassins are meant to have high damage and mobility, but they have really low durability. Tanks are meant to be hard to kill and provide CC for their team, but they don't do reliable damage. Juggernauts have high damage and durability, but they suffer from having difficulty getting to their target. (Though Flash has shown to reduce this problem a bit) All the champions above do not apply to this however.

After that very large section, the rest of the bible would be relatively simple:

-No champion can have more than 1 dash/blink, or a single Dash or Blink that can be cast in rapid succession (Nidalee, Yasuo, Kassadin) -No champion can have an ability that ignores game mechanics (Akali's former ability to stay invisible to turrets, Pyke's ability to give full gold) -No champion can be invisible forever (Evelynn and Teemo) -No ability can have more than 2 unique effects. (Yasuo's Q scales with AS, treated as basic attack, and is a knockup) -No ability can have no cost. (Riven, Garen, Katarina, Yasuo) -No champion can be balanced based on bias (Riot's favoritism) -Any champion that violates the Triangle of Balance will be given a rework of some sort. Whether it be big or small. (Some champions will need a small fix. Other's will need a large scale rework)

And with the above rules and regulations in place, balancing the game will become much easier, allowing the overall gameplay experience to improve.

P.S. You may have noticed that I used Yasuo as an example in a lot of these rules. That's because Yasuo is a *really good example of poor game design.

8 Comments

WoonStruck12/26/2019, 11:59:32 PM2 votes

The solution is for Riot to actually put effort and money toward their game, rather than having 1 or 2 balance designers with no oversight, and spending everything on creative assets instead of an actual design and balance team the size of their original one.

King Lego12/26/2019, 8:35:35 PM1 votes

As far as I could tell, while working as a champion designer might be cool and probably a dream job, let alone being a member of the balance team to the game you love, the only question is, would the rest of the team even agree to suggestions and ideas you bring to the table?

That triangle philosophy isn't even new though. It's just basic common sense really.

Rewt12/26/2019, 9:55:29 PM1 votes

I think the boards, Reddit, really the community as a whole gives the balance team too much shit.

The balance team has to try to find a way to balance the asinine kits that the design them hands them. Like honestly. How the actual fuck are you supposed to tweak the numbers on Champs like Fiora, and aphelios to make them not crazy but still playable.

Light of Madness12/27/2019, 3:22:45 AM1 votes

What you said is cool but is basically what Cronno Trigger did a long time ago, if you prefer Pokemon gameboy, FInal Fantasy? How about all games that think about balance? Is really basic, is neat but yeah. I have no idea what are the Design Pillars from riot. I saw the Riot Pillars on the website and I don't think they follow them. So I can imagine they do the same with the Design Pillars.

It doesn't even need to be a triangle can be hexagon or any shape you want, just need to connect the points and balance. If something is strong doing something it needs to be weak doing another thing. Also put numbers to limit how good and how bad can be, I guess riot "show us" that on that graph when you click to look more details of the champs ingame (what a joke).

To be honest I think riot simply doesnt care. If you take yasuo for example....

................................

  • Hey this champion will be able to dash on enemies..
  • ok ,like lee sin?
  • No, he can just click and go but a short distance.
  • alright, just once?
  • Is just once but the CD will be really low, but to use on the same enemy the player will have to wait more ( we make a UI to show that)
  • Alright... So he will be limited by the use of the mana?
  • Mana? nonono, don't put mana, no energy, just CD on him.
  • Are you sure?
  • yeah yeah, trust me.
  • Ok, he can dash into enemies players sounds ok...
  • Players? I said enemies, minions are enemies the jungles are enemies...
  • Oh gosh... but it will have 7-8 dashes each time there is a wave, and the minions suppose to help not to be a disadvantage. How about when the minions are coming? They are walking in a line, the distance will be bigger than a flash and flash has a huge CD... Are you sure?
  • Shhhh.. trust me.
  • Ok but it will be just a distraction champ right? Like a bait thing no real damage, it is already too fast.
  • What? nnononono, I will give a shield to protect you know, he is moving too much he may move wrong so he needs something to protect, you know. And before you talk. We should give him an spell that will use on hit effects items ,like stattik , and of course with a really low CD, and if the player hits 3 times.. how about a..... Tornado!!! ... you know he is fast so he is moving the air with his Q generating energy to create a tornado and on the third Q he will be able to use it with a big range, but he can hold, on him of course, and different from Janna will be instant cast to the maximum range as soon as the players uses it.......

Wait... I will drink some water...

...... Ok, and of course for protection because Is too much dmg already... .....A wind wall! cool right? But needs to be a strong wall so itl will block any ranged attack, not melees cause we need to balance, you know. Oh wait... Ranged Spells too!! but ok... just projectiles. See? I am nice!

  • Is that all?

  • ye... Houly! I forgot the ult, how about because you know, he uses the air and is fast tornado and all... Everytime that there is knockup he will be able to go the enemy on the air , like a teleport, and attack to keep them there (hahaha the other player will be like an AI on DMC, will be amazing), and because he got all this air power and movement he gets shields back and amplify his power after it because he got all that power!!! omg so strong, will be amazing!

  • So this is balanced?

  • hmmm... true, sorry something is missing. Let me check..... OH, give him double critical chance so he can get 100 % easy! We dont give too much HP to him and will be PERFECT!

  • yeah I can see it is a great job...... Sorry to bother you... where do I quit?

....................................

See? Riot doesnt care or this champion would never exist. Just one example.