I just learned the person in charge of balancing Camille is the guy who made Camille

Derfel·Feb 11, 2017·84 votes·5,508 views

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

I don't understand how Riot works. They love the excuse that they have separate departments for doing everything which of course gives all these departments plausible deniability when shit hits the fan, which it does frequently, but why is this guy balancing his own mess. You're asking this one guy, who couldn't tell Camille was going to be a fucking stupid as fuck champion to begin with, to try and objectively analyze where his design went wrong, essentially asking him to call himself out.

Omg is this why Riot keeps beating around the bush for so many problematic champions, you give their balancing back to the people who made them who are naturally vested in trying to not look like stupid failures. Why. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

128 Comments

Silent PaceFeb 11, 201743 votes

Yes, and they are more than fit for that role. If you've ever made something you would have an emotional connection to it, that person also made Camille with a vision on what role they want Camille to be in and what they want Camille to do. They are the perfect person to balance that champion.

EinarUlfarFeb 11, 201749 votes

I disagree. Yeah, they're connected to said champion, but it's possible for them to share their vision with another member of a balance team; potentially one with a less foggy view of what would be "balanced". The OP's point was that it's difficult for many to objectively view their own work and find "flaws" in it.

Taking into account that - Camille has enough steroids to single-handedly win the Olympics, her designer balances her?, and the recent patch gave us number nerfs with an Ult change that the community was asking for, it's clear to the outside viewer that this designer doesn't realize(or at least, acknowledge) how overtuned/overloaded the kit itself is.

GankedFromBehindFeb 11, 20174 votes

Camille, with all her steriods, can't do shit to duelists like Xin, Jax, Irelia.

SchàdenfreudeFeb 11, 201718 votes

Yet Camille, with all her steriods, can chase squishies much better than they can and be able to burst them faster.

MissingKayoFeb 11, 20171 votes

She can't though.

Xin and Jax can near immediately delete an ADC. Well actually, Jax is shit, so probably not him. And Irelia's not about burst anyways.

RevaliFeb 11, 201723 votes

Irelia's not about burst anyways.

Are you kidding me

EschetonFeb 11, 20177 votes

Alternatively, they overtuned her on purpose so people like her, buy her, skin her. Then, she needs to get downtuned to avoid a riot, giving the illusion of balance. When really they are just trying to keep her overtuned enough that many early adopters keep playing her and those that haven´t yet, buy her skin. Then they nerf her in preparation for the next champ, and overtune her again when she gets a Project Skin.

BlueBilberryFeb 11, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Alternatively, they overtuned her on purpose so people like her, buy her, skin her. Then, she needs to get downtuned to avoid a riot, giving the illusion of balance. When really they are just trying to keep her overtuned enough that many early adopters keep playing her and those that haven´t yet, buy her skin. Then they nerf her in preparation for the next champ, and overtune her again when she gets a Project Skin.

On the right track I think...

Faceroll TacticsFeb 11, 20174 votes

Sounds a lot like Ekko lol

SpoofghoulFeb 11, 20172 votes

and other champions

just look at how many of them get their overdue nerfs a month or 2/3 after the new and shiny skin came out only to have a new monstrosity roaming about, ofc with a new skin

XonraFeb 12, 20172 votes

Except the past batch of champions have been anything BUT overtuned, and they sure as hell didn't plop out a lot of skins, nor sell a lot of skins, so that is just quite the assumption. I think they are just clueless with certain teams of new champs.

Ivern was decently balanced and not overtuned like Camille
Kled is all but forgotten, but outside of being maybe annoying, he was far from overtuned
Taliyah had to be hard buffed on release (which Riot took a bit TOO far, then went too far in the other direction, and so on).
A-Sol was not at all overtuned, and outside of Huhi on CLG, no one cares about the champs anymore, and it hasn't even been a year.
Jhin is the only one so far that is a go to since release, as Ivern is sort of "is everything else banned?" pick.
Illaoi was by no means overtuned, and is more annoying to lane against than anything really.

The point is, I'm not sure I buy them overtuning on purpose, as they haven't touched "overtuned" with their recent champs since, probably Kindred at the closest, which still was no where near the same level, and before that? Probably Ekko at the closest, and that was in 2015.

I think they just took the word of the creator, pushed it through, then went "shit this champ is too strong", instead of catching it before she went out, as it was obvious she was too strong before she even came out.

ElikainFeb 11, 20176 votes

And just because Camille's creator is balancing her does not mean that emotional attachment will make them biased. After all, the perfect place for Camillle is for her to be balanced and not OP or UP. Therefore, her creator wouldn't hesitate to buff or nerf her, if she needed to be addressed. And no, they probably can't make a call by themselves to nerf or buff a champion, because they feel like it.

it's clear to the outside viewer that this designer doesn't realize(or at least, acknowledge) how overtuned/overloaded the kit itself is.

Now you're speculating. Practically implying that her designer had the power to veto the decision to nerf her sooner. Or that they hid the information about her state until more people got dispatched to look for the problem. It's not up to a single person to decide on these changes, all of the buffs or nerfs are discussed on Riot's meetings with the people who are in charge of those things, probably grouped in various teams that are closely related to game balance. So the skins team is definitely not sitting in meetings that are related to SR balance.

UnboundCreatorFeb 11, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Silent Pace,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qRfyEK2q,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-02-11T12:42:13.496+0000)

Yes, and they are more than fit for that role. If you've ever made something you would have an emotional connection to it, that person also made Camille with a vision on what role they want Camille to be in and what they want Camille to do. They are the perfect person to balance that champion.

No.

MissingKayoFeb 11, 201711 votes

What an amazingly constructive and well thought out reply. [zombie-brand-clap]

macromiteFeb 11, 20174 votes

probably one of the more accurate ones too.

Core of EFeb 11, 20174 votes

" that person also made Camille with a vision on what role they want Camille to be in and what they want Camille to do", Everything, he wanted everything.

XonraFeb 12, 20172 votes

Not everyone is able to step back and objectively look at something they did in the same way someone that didn't directly impact or work on that something can, and in most cases, I would say the majority of people can't, so says my years on the earth worth of experience (including myself in some cases I admit). Most people usually respond with "well what's wrong with it exactly?" or "I'm not sure there really is a problem but I'll look", and then attempt to argue their case for why the other person(s) is/are wrong.

You tend to have a "Create" department and a "fix" department in a business for a reason in most cases, and this is exactly the kind of reason you don't give the job of fixing back to the department that created. The fix department knows HOW to fix, and can be objective. The create departments job isn't to fix, it is to create. Those are two different skill sets on top of the objectivity issue. It is pretty good common sense as far as business goes, but then again since the start of 2016, I have been questioning where Riot Games' common sense went, so perhaps that confusion is on me.

Hexs FortuneFeb 11, 201715 votes

I respect a man willing to take personal responsibility and balance out the nightmare of power/mobility creep that is camille

LankPantsFeb 11, 201715 votes

The exact same thing happened with Akali. Rickless reworks her, Akali mains unanimously say the rework is pure garbage, despite this Riot keeps letting him work on Akali and she's left shit. Post rework Akali is still a huge downgrade from pre rework and Rickless can't see this because he's too blinded by his vision, whatever the hell that is.

MissingKayoFeb 11, 20172 votes

Rickless isn't the one who did Camille though.

Comparing the two is sort of illogical. Just because one fucked up doesn't mean the other will do as well automatically.

macromiteFeb 11, 20177 votes

rickless might not be the one that fucked up camille.

but they both do share the fact that they fucked up.

ZettoFeb 11, 20175 votes

I mean, technically you're not wrong, but frankly considering that most akali mains don't understand that what they wanted riot to keep, being the whole "100-to-0ing people in half a second" thing, was the problem, and then whining because they no longer have the ability to insta-burst, I don't really feel like their opinion of the rework being pure garbage is entirely reliable.

Hinagiku33Feb 12, 201711 votes

Actually most of the vocal Akali players were just begging for her to still be able to manually place her shroud and to change the healing on her passive to the second strike. So the shroud could actually be placed somewhere useful instead of right on top of where she's already standing, and her only source of sustain kicks in when she actually needs it instead of being wasted at the start of her assassination when she still has full health.

Just reverting the shroud functionality to pre-rework (yes, losing the wall-hopping dash pre-6 she didn't need clogging her power budget) and changing the order of her passive on-hit effects would basically fix all of Akali's non-numbers issues.

VexingRavenFeb 12, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fiora All Night,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qRfyEK2q,comment-id=000300030000,timestamp=2017-02-12T01:20:25.573+0000)

Actually most of the vocal Akali players were just begging for her to still be able to manually place her shroud and to change the healing on her passive to the second strike. So the shroud could actually be placed somewhere useful instead of right on top of where she's already standing, and her only source of sustain kicks in when she actually needs it instead of being wasted at the start of her assassination when she still has full health.

Just reverting the shroud functionality to pre-rework (yes, losing the wall-hopping dash pre-6 she didn't need clogging her power budget) and changing the order of her passive on-hit effects would basically fix all of Akali's non-numbers issues.

I agree with this so much. I haven't played Akali much in a long time but I just cannot see the current shroud ever being as good for jukes and dives as the old one was.

AhristocatsFeb 11, 201715 votes

it's like if they let certainlyt balancing thresh in season 3/4

"hm, looks balanced to me"

Sexy Jack RabbitFeb 12, 20172 votes

To be honest that's just CertainlyT balancing anything.

TurquoiseYoshiFeb 11, 20178 votes

Yeah, I'm so upset that she got huge 7.3 nerfs from her creator rather than huge 7.3 nerfs from someone else.

MFTORANK1Feb 11, 20174 votes

Her nerf are irrelevant, it reminds me of this kid of was arguing with me on the board saying Camille wasn't gonna get picked in the LCS/LCK and that she was weak loolll

TurquoiseYoshiFeb 11, 20174 votes

The 7.3 patch hasn't gone through yet on any professional level, to my knowledge. And I doubt you're a pro analyst, so we have no idea if Camille will be picked once the nerfs come through.

MFTORANK1Feb 11, 20173 votes

LS and Scarra are pro analyst and they said so !!!!

Papa AndreiFeb 11, 20172 votes

Sheeple

Backup4nowFeb 11, 20175 votes

This is a sheeple: "A pro player said/did this, so I also believe this/do this without any further contemplation."

This is not a sheeple: "I picked a side on an argument. Some people are doubtful of me, but even the people most qualified to speak on this topic side with me, so I believe myself to be correct."

There's a big difference.

DanjengFeb 11, 20178 votes

I don't understand. The designer released Camille in such a blatantly overpowered state. But also showed that he was capable of nerfing his own creation. Why did he release such a monstrosity in the first place? How was this deemed okay from PBE, and released live in the state that it was?

I don't want to be mean, but whoever made Camille did a bad job. She's received nothing but big nerfs, which really goes to show how overpowered she was before. Even now, when she's weak, she is an annoying champion to deal with. It's going to be difficult to balance Camille, because her core gameplay is not healthy. When she's ahead, she's incredibly hard to get away from, even more so than a fed Frozen Fist Ekko, and it's practically your funeral when she ults. And Camille was almost always ahead on release. When all her numbers are nerfed like they are now, she is still hard to get away from, but she doesn't do jack shit, instead letting her team mates get you.

LeonerdoFeb 11, 20177 votes

2 reasons why she was released overtuned:

PBE is not good for testing balance, because it is not a competitive environment. It never has been. Rioters have said this in response to questions like yours. Sorry I don't have links though.
Camille is not the easiest of champions to learn. It takes more than a few games to git gud at her. People usually don't play new champs on the PBE more than a few times. By the time someone understands a new champ on the PBE, they give their feedback and move on. So there is never a large stable of "Camille mains" that you can follow to see how good she will be once people start grinding her in ranked.

Sahn UzalFeb 11, 20175 votes

Its his first champion IIRC. Camille will be a learning oppurtunity for the guy.

LeonerdoFeb 11, 20178 votes

Because Riot's designers aren't stupid enough to over-tune their favorite champion, because "muh baby". Having imbalanced champions isn't good for anyone, especially the person who made them. It only causes a bunch of outrage (see this post) and causes the champ to be banned constantly (not fun for anyone). If a champ is released overtuned, it is a mistake, and the designer in charge will try and fix that mistake (see the past 3 nerfs to Camille), because their #1 goal is to make fun champions, not roflstomp champions. And while Riot is willing to forgive and learn from mistakes by their designers, they also are willing to move people to other projects (or other jobs) more fitting of their "skillset" if they continue to make too many mistakes.

Damion WolfFeb 12, 20171 votes

Except they don't want balance. They want a competitive imbalance. If you want pure balance then go play a fucking card game or DoTA. you dipshit. Try reading the articles Riot publishes about their design goals and philosophies.

There are aspects of every champion that should, by design, be stronger than any other champion. If they were all equally balanced then it wouldn't matter which one you wanted. There would be no "counter picks". There would be no reason for picks/bans or a draft phase. You would have similarly colored LEGO blocks throwing pixels at each other.

Sometimes champions are more powerful than they need to be. This can happen for a number of reasons. Learn to play around it, concede to banning them or sign up for the design/balance team and fix it yourself. In the mean time, stop fucking bitching about it, you massive pussy.

LeonerdoFeb 12, 20172 votes

Um, are you okay?

They do want balance. DotA and card games aren't the only games made with balance in mind. I have read most of Riot's articles about their design philosophies.

Yes, champions have strengths and weaknesses. But, balance doesn't mean that there are no strengths or weaknesses.

Of course sometimes champions are imbalanced. I do play around it all the time and use my bans wisely. I am not cut out for a job at Riot; most people aren't. So we give criticism here, to try and help what little we can. And I'm not bitching about anything; I was arguing against the OP, who is the one bitching about Camille's imbalance.

Also, geez, rude.

Damion WolfFeb 16, 20171 votes

"Um, are you okay?"

That's a stupid question. The only people who start a reply with something like that are the passive-aggressive types who want to discredit the person they're replying to while maintaining some plausible deniability.

Sensitive little snow flake.

Balance means all involved are equal. Balance is boring. Balance is stagnate. The word you're looking for is competitive.

You're not trying to help. You're just whining because you found something you don't like in a free game. Just like how I'm not trying to help; I'm poking fun of a person whining on the internet about something they don't like.

LeonerdoFeb 16, 20172 votes

You just seem very angry, and I don't know why.

I am pretty passive-aggressive, it's a flaw. I'll try and stick to the discussion. It would be nice if you could likewise be less confrontational in the future. I would start by not calling people offensive names. I believe you're smart enough to know what's offensive.

On to the real discussion...

I think we have very different definitions of balance. First of all, to me, game balance doesn't mean anything concrete. It just means, in general, there are many strategies/tactics/classes/characters/choices and they are all decent options. Competitive options. So yes, I think balance and competition go hand in hand.

Me and my best friend have arguments like this all the time, where the disagreement just stems from the words we're using, which we think mean different things. In the end we usual have the same opinion, but have different ways of expressing it.

I think that's what's happening here too. I don't think all the champions should be the same. Rather, every champion should be good at something different, and some of them will be better in general, because they have generally applicable strengths. And some will only be good in a small niche. But all of them need to be competitive picks in at least some situations, and none of them should be without competition (that is, none should be always the best pick).

Damion WolfFeb 16, 20171 votes

No, damn it. I'm just poking you to get a response. Was I not clear about that in my previous post?

But since you just had to go and go to take me seriously...

Semantics isn't the issue. The issue is the idea that it is somehow wrong/stupid/immoral to have a paid professional designer or team work on the fine-tuning of a champion that they created. If this is something that you are seriously complaining about then, my random acquaintance, you have run out of things to bitch about.

I might end up squishing together replies from a few different dumbass topics I've seen here in this next paragraph. They might not all pertain to what you've said but I can't be bothered to scroll back up and the conversation again.

Aspects of the game do not go straight from the design team to implementation. They are _approved _before they make it in to the God damn game. Design team members do not approve their own designs. Somebody else does. This isn't the design team slipping a fastball past everybody just to get their super cool new chimpokemon in to the game unmolested and over-powered. This is shit. Shit happens. It's part of the ongoing process of making, maintaining and expanding upon a living piece of software. All of the idiots who talk about how big of a disaster this is clearly weren't around for the good old days of Dodge stacking, Legacy Yi and Upon-Release Xin Zao (that was a fun five days).

And, again, Riot are happy with releasing a champion on the slightly powerful side at first to build interest in them. Sometimes the champion is too powerful. Then somebody will look at it, assess it then decide to tell the design team responsible what changes THEY WANT DONE to the champion. The changes will be made and then the champion will be tested then somebody will APPROVE the final product before it goes in to the game.

This is how a business works, kids. Riot aren't new at this.

The arguments for and against have already been made. The fact is that the person/people who make something are going to be the ones who know the most about that thing and its fine details and inner workings. Whatever freedoms of design and correction they have are specifically given to them by the people who pay their salaries. Therefor, Riot is okay with them doing what the fuck they are paid for. There is no moral ambiguity on this. This isn't a court case. This isn't deciding who lives or dies. This is fucking maintenance.

LeonerdoFeb 17, 20171 votes

Well if you paid attention to what I've said, you'd know I already said 3/4 of what you said.

I agree.

Except there is no "somebody" who's job it is to evaluate releases and tell the champion design teams to fix it. The design teams evaluate their own shit. And Ghostcrawler has said several times that champ designers OWN their projects. They take tons of feedback from coworkers and from data analysts and are responsible for problems that crop up, but they do not have to ask for final approval from some kind of head manager on anything. askghostcrawler.tumblr.com is where I read most of this.

Damion WolfFeb 17, 20171 votes

I already fucking said I just poking for a reaction, asshole. Why would I care at all about some conversation you've had with other nerds?

So you are determined to ignore the subject itself. That's nice. I guess that means you are dead set on the idea that having the design team in charge of a champion also applying fixes to that champion is somehow immoral. You can scroll back up to see how I feel about that.

LeonerdoFeb 17, 20171 votes

I never said it was immoral. I said that's the way it is. And I have no beef with it. It works. Sorry for not making that clear. Let me try again:

I agree with everything that you have said, except your definition of the word "balance", your implication that Riot has some kind of high-level approval process for every change to any champion, and your unapologetic "poking".

Once more, I agree that Riot's current balancing strategy is good, and I agree that when things are unbalanced on release that it was an honest mistake, and I'm okay with dealing with those mistakes until Riot fixes it. For example, bringing it back to the start of this whole adventure, I don't give a shit that Camille was broken on release; "Shit happens. It's part of [an] ongoing process..."

And you aren't only poking for a reaction, or I think this conversation would have been much less verbose.

Damion WolfFeb 17, 20171 votes

Actually I think the only reason I started poking you was because of the "balance" thing. You're also likely not going to convince me that there is zero oversight between champion creation teams and implementation in to the game. That idea is just silly. _ "And you aren't only poking for a reaction, or I think this conversation would have been much less verbose."_

So I like substance with my ranting. Kiss my ass.

Anyway, good talk.

LeonerdoFeb 17, 20172 votes

I guess I would say there is teamsight, rather than oversight. The designers have to get their team on board with their decisions before they implement them. But there is no head honcho that can veto all balance changes. And when I say a designer needs his teams approval, I just mean in general; there can be a couple voices of disagreement, as long as there's much more support than dissent.

So I guess, semantics again. The "oversight" they have isn't traditional oversight.

Yeah, good talk. I guess we should stop beating this dead horse, but I wanted to get the last word in :)

ShadowParkerFeb 11, 20177 votes

They have the designer Balance their own champion for around a month after release. After that, live game play takes over.

It's not like she isn't getting hit hard. Let's calm down and not be assholes.

SanKakUFeb 11, 20172 votes

If you don't like Camille kicking your butt, buy some armor. It's not that hard. All her damage is physical unless she grabs a magical damage keystone or item.

MrNuclearPumpkinFeb 11, 20174 votes

{quoted}

If you don't like Camille kicking your butt, buy some armor. It's not that hard. All her damage is physical unless she grabs a magical damage keystone or item.

.....true damage that scales on your max health.