Boards›Gameplay

How could mechanical engineering processes help RIOT balance their games.

The Anivia OTP·1/30/2020, 12:38:48 PM·1 votes·845 views

Hi , while looking at my old engineering lessons i saw an opportunity to write riot about this.

When creating a product you always have limits in terms of usage , weight and everything.

a good practise according to most is to calculate what is the medium maximum your item can tolerate and divide this by two.

So if you rope can hold a maximum of 900 kg you'd advertise it as a 450 kg. if you elevator can widstand 2 tons, you'd advertise it as able to carry 1 ton.

if your keycaps can be used 4 millions times before showing any problem, you can advertise it as a 2 million one.

What i imagined for league of legends is a way to balance their champion : if champion is fun to play against at 2x the power and fun to play as at 0.5x time the power, it's gonna be fun at 1 time the power for both people.

Skyrim kinda does that for it difficulty. it just divides your damages by 4 on legendary and multiply it by 4 on easy.

i think this is a good general practise to see if you didn't make a mistake when designing your champion. It doesn't need to be ultra balanced at 2x the power, just that you can see how to play against.

if nasus got 4 times the stack in lane, you'd still bully him. there is a real counterplay to him.

if anivia dealt 2 times the damages , you'd be dead at level 2. it's crazy unfair how much it deals for how little it cost this early.

If aphelios dealt 0.5x damages, he'd actually be balanced.

i think you get the idea. Basically, if your kit isn't working with buff up and gutted down numbers, there are a lot of chances your champion will need crazy interactions with items and will be very hard to balance in the future.

5 Comments

Silly Neeko1/30/2020, 1:00:04 PM3 votes

The problem is....

That does not help. The reason why is less because of the champion and more because of the players.

For example.... Yuumi, Soraka, Nami, Vlad, Nasus, Illaoi...... the list goes on but hopefully you see a common denominator. Healing. You know what the ADC and the tanks all NEGLECT to buy? Bramble Vest/Executioners Calling. You know what people tend to complain about in these cases? "F THAT CHAMP. THEY ARE UNKILLABLE. THEY HEAL WAY TOO MUCH."

Or when they pick Cassiopia into Akali. They pick Soraka supp into Varus ADC. Etc etc etc.

Needless to say, there is very few people who are feeding their hamster before letting it spin the wheel. This is why champions "look" overpowered and "seem" overpowered. It is also why Riot balance team NEVER and I do mean NEVER try balancing a champ just because some people are complaining about it. They look at numbers, because people are often unreliable and have their own agendas or have no clue what they are talking about half the time.

Saezio1/30/2020, 1:06:33 PM2 votes

So, you are comparing "fun" something subjective. To rope endurance something objective.

There are people right now that wouldn't enjoy playing some champs even if they did 4x their damage.

So, your entire point is moot.

Posui Gart1/30/2020, 1:27:58 PM1 votes

What i imagined for league of legends is a way to balance their champion : if champion is fun to play against at 2x the power and fun to play as at 0.5x time the power, it's gonna be fun at 1 time the power for both people.

No champion is fun to play against at 2x. No champion is fun to play as at 0.5x.

Skyrim kinda does that for it difficulty. it just divides your damages by 4 on legendary and multiply it by 4 on easy.

Damage is not the only "power" in the game. Divide Nautilus damage by 2 and he still has all his CC. Multiply his damage by 2 and he is still countered by morgana's E.