Objective Balance Theory - Towers, Dragons and Herald
Objective Balance Theory
Long post ahead so use this to skip section you want to read about. Each section is divided by a line.
Part 1 - Intro Statement Part 2 - Tower Issues Part 3 - Towers Suggestions Part 4 - Dragon Issues Part 5 - Dragon Suggestion Part 6 - Rift Herald Issues Part 7 - Rift Herald Suggestions Part 8 - Quick Summery
Part 1 - Intro Statement
What I am about to say is all theory. This is all subjective to opinion and many people will disagree and agree. All I ask when posting here is that you are respectful to others opinions. This is not a game of just plat+ players, this is not an LCS only game, this is a game that caters to all. Bronze to Challenger, young to old, new to veteran. Everyone experiences this game differently and we need to respect how each player sees the game. We need to accept that players with more experience have a deeper understanding of the complexities in this game yet new players need to have ways to learn and adapt to the level of the veterans. This game needs to be enjoyable by bronze to Gold just as much as it is competitive for Platinum to Challenger.
I want to address some issues for many demographics about towers, dragons, and Rift herald. I want to put forth some thoughts and ideas I have about each and how these can improve game play for all. You may notice I haven't mentioned Baron but I feel that Baron is the healthiest of all the objectives a team can capture. The other objectives need a bit of tuning and there are a lot of ideas out there about what to change and why. I want to tackle some numbers on each of these but also some mental motivations for each of these objectives. Mental impact of any objective isn't something that can easily be quantified and is why so many players put value on different aspects of League of Legends. It is something that can only be tested by Riot on live servers and can often be very difficult for game designers to work around.
So, lets get to it.
Part 2 - Tower Issues
A hot topic is often towers and how to balance them. The most prevailing is that towers are too weak but there have been times where they were too strong. They provide global gold to your team making them great objectives for taking to get gold on your entire team. They help manage waves of minions. They are supposed to provide some early protection to your champion during laning phase and can deal some semi-decent damage in extended trades under it. The biggest problem is that towers provide global gold and are very fragile. It takes 1/2 to 1 item to take a tower and with current gold generation this can happen fairly quick. This leads to several mental states that are unhealthy for lower level play.
Towers are currently seen in two ways: Gold for my team. Gold for my enemy. I know this seems obvious but is that what they should seem like? This duel mentality leads to players staying in lane for extremely long times if they are unable to take the tower. They feel pressured to take the enemies tower and they feel they have to protect their own. Lower tier players are being tricked into thinking that they can't leave lane easily because they might lose their tower. They worry about backing to buy, often saving up 3k plus gold, for fear they will lose tower. They focus completely on their lane so they can beat their counterpart and score big gold with their tower. All of this thinking leads to too much focus on laning and too much worrying about towers.
Towers cannot be equal if they are not strong. This is another problem and one that crosses from LCS to low tier play. Remember LCS is enjoyed by a LOT of people so it is important they have balance there too. When towers were weak and equal every game started with a swapped lane tower trade. This became so popular that the strategy started showing up in regular play as well and when that happened Riot had to make some changes so that bot tower and top tower were no longer equal strength.
Towers cannot be too strong. If towers are too powerful they delay the game an unreasonable amount making for very long extend 40+ minute games. I know some people enjoy these games but not everyone wants every game to be 40+ minutes. This is why champions have early game, mid game, and late game spikes. There needs to be equal opportunity for every champion to shine. Tower strength can directly affect this.
Towers cannot be too weak. A problem many feel is happening now. When towers are too weak it becomes too easy for enemy teams to snowball a global advantage by capturing multiple towers all at once. This exacerbates the duel mentality that the towers are either gold for me or gold for you. This is perhaps the worst state for towers to be in for new players but can be rewarding for more experienced high tier players.
Part 3 - Towers Suggestions
We have to make changes here carefully because towers are a key focal point for balance between early, mid and late game champions. I do not think direct buffs are the best way to change towers. I think there needs to be some situational buffs instead. Currently towers are designed in such a way that they lose their fortification bonus when enemy minions are "attacking" them. This is a very important aspect of taking towers. My suggestion is to add a reverse of this.
When allied minions are under an allied turret's influence they gain increased stats for damage and defense.
This suggestion is to keep towers the way they are but provide windows where defending players can feel safe and strong. This also allows times where they can really punish enemy champions that dive with some well placed CC. This also still allows for tower taking but puts a larger focus on minion wave management. This bonus should be even stronger for inner turrets because this is where players that fall behind need to hold out. There should certainly be a visual indication around the minions so that players can identify when they are powerful both to increase the idea that the tower can be defended and to warn when it is too hard to dive.
This allows some unique wave management strategies. It also makes it easier to defend a turret in the early game but since minions fall off so hard later the bonuses they get would also fall off as it becomes very easy to clear waves later. Players can go back to under their turret in more situations as long as they are with their minion wave. Minions can defend their tower better so that some meaningful wave clear would be helpful in taking towers. This provides a bit more defense for towers while allowing options for enemies to still take them just instead of doing it with 1/2 an item they will need a full item or two to clear the minions under turret.
This defensive minion bonus will improve the "feel" that towers can be protected as well as provide a bonus for situations. The visual component will add to this and could likely change mentality from towers as a source of gold to protect or attack to get gold to a location of power that can be held or defended. This keeps towers pretty stable but allows times of power to defend.
Part 4 - Dragon Issues
Dragons are pretty engaging at this time and offer a large variety of bonuses that can be valuable to every team. They are an often contested objective when the right dragon is up. They are not totally unbalanced except that they are RNG personified. They have a flaw in that they give early game reward for early game for a winning team and nothing for late game for a losing team.
RNG is a problem. It means that the numbers can lie. That you can lose a game based on a random number. I don't have a problem with what the dragons give for bonuses but I do have a problem with how random they can be. I'm sure everyone here has experienced a game in which the dragon is particularly cruel in it's choice.
Elder Dragon only favors early winning teams. Elder Dragon is an odd ball of an objective. If your team has dragons it's great and super powerful. If your team has no dragons it is the least rewarding objective in the game. For an end game objective that is pretty punishing to a scaling team comp that aims for late game. True damage is a pretty cool bonus and the double previous dragon stats is great too but again it is a lop-sided objective that only rewards early game bullies and mid-game power houses.
Part 5 - Dragon Suggestion
First off, lets address the RNG.
After dragon spawns (first one is random) it should rotate Infernal, Air, Ocean, Mountain once per minute. Once killed the next time it spawns it will be the next dragon in line.
For example: At the 7 minute mark Ocean Dragon spawns. At minute 8 it changes to Mountain. At minute 9 it changes to Infernal. A team starts a battle with dragon as Fire killing it (once Dragon is aggroed it locks in the type until aggro is dropped and it is fully healed). When the dragon spawns again it starts as Air.
This eliminates the RNG aspect of the dragon and allows some VERY interesting plays. A losing team could try to pressure the winning team to lose the dragon they want by positioning aggressively. In the above example the team not getting the dragon could get to the dragon pit first and force the enemy to fight them in a disadvantaged position with no vision or wait to properly pressure them out but get the Air Dragon instead of fire because they were delayed a minute. A max of three stacks on any type of dragon could even be a point to pressure a loss of dragon bonus if timed correctly or the team that doesn't have three infernal could grab one of their own. This allows windows of opportunity to catch back up.
Elder is a little more difficult but to solve the one sided benefit problem instead of a bonus equal to half the dragons you have the bonus should be half of all dragons so far. This way if a winning team has all the dragons the losing team that played the objective game better gets some much needed bonuses. The true damage should remain the same though. This would continue to give an end game objective for early game champs and a late game bonus that is worth it for late game scaling teams.
Part 6 - Rift Herald Issues
Let's face it. Rift Herald sucks. The benefit is so paltry that it rarely ever makes a difference. It's nice to have but in the course of a game it's impact is often pretty poor. This objective is cool in theory but rarely delivers on it's goals. It would seem like a dream objective for players to get in solo que but even there it is rarely obtained. It's benefit doesn't really have a huge effect. That is probably a good thing for a buff that lasts 20 minutes.
The only issue here is that the benefit of getting Herald isn't good enough to warrant attention. It will only be picked up as an after thought when already winning quite hard. There isn't really more to say here outside of just the total lack of players interest to grab this objective.
Part 7 - Rift Herald Suggestions
Herald needs a totally new benefit. I think it would be a good thing to make this something that is meaningful to trade for dragon. i think a buff that was designed to help you defend until the Baron arrives would be the ideal candidate both thematically and mechanically. My suggestion is:
Herald buff no longer buffs a single champion but rather the Herald buffs towers for a time instead
This would serve as a boon for a team that needs to buy time and provides something that can buy them time to reach late game versus the dragon which gives a buff immediately. I'm not sure what numbers to tie to that but I think a buff that was focused on something other then champions would be the right direction. Perhaps those shields that used to be on inner turrets could be granted with this buff? Whatever the case, this would be a great buff for defensive type teams and provided a bit less for offensive teams but still provide a benefit of security.
Part 8 - Quick Summery
Towers When allied minions are under an allied turret's influence they gain increased stats for damage and defense.
Dragons After dragon spawns (first one is random) it should rotate Infernal, Air, Ocean, Mountain once per minute. Once killed the next time it spawns it will be the next dragon in line.
Elder Dragon should grant 50% bonus for all dragons not just own
Rift Herald Herald buff no longer buffs a single champion but rather the Herald buffs towers for a time instead
